Off-topic question for the native English speakers: what is the difference you see between passing away and passing on? It's the first time I come across the latter.
> passed away / passed on ... native English speakers
Native English speaker here. I've told my wife and kids that my obituary is to say simply that I died, not that I passed away, or passed on, or crossed over, or went to meet my Lord and Savior (a common formulation in the South), or anything like that.
(My wife's response: "You won't be here; I'm going to do what I want.")
There is little difference between the two, as it relates to kicking the bucket†. However, using "pass on" may imply passing on to some sort of afterlife, as opposed to simply departing the world.
The phrase "pass on" has more meanings. For instance, you can "pass on" an investment opportunity, meaning to decline to make the investment. Also, you can use it transitively, as in transferring something to somebody.
Yes, 'pass on' is especially tricky, as it depends on context and emphasis. If I say 'I'll PASS on that opportunity' it means I'll decline it; but if I say 'I'll pass ON that opportunity', it means I'll offer it to someone else.
As a former newspaper sub editor, I can say there is no difference. Neither should EVER be used. The phrase they are looking for here is "has died". In news reporting it is wrong to beat about the bush, to try to soften the blow or to sugar coat things with meaningless rubbish like "passed away" or "joined the choir invisible". Harrumph.
Interestingly from a semantic perspective, according to http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/dict4.htm there exists an alternative rendering in Egyptian which consists of two perpendicularly contrasted pairs of parallel lines, explained as "deceased (true of voice)".
There may be some nuance I'm not aware of, but to my ears passing away and passing on are largely identical euphemisms for death.
If I really were to stretch I'd say passing on sounds a bit more like something applied to a person who was actively engaged in life, whereas passing away sounds a bit more like what might be said of an elderly person who has already somewhat detached from the world even before death, but that's pretty tenuous.
English is a language where redundancy is an understatement. Speaking as a fairly competent writer, it's effectively my role as a writer to make up yet more ways to say the same thing hoping for a centimeter more of clarity.
I have to admit my heart almost stopped when I thought that Thomas Dolby, one of my favorite musicians, had passed away. I caught his tour recently. Really good!
Ray Dolby is the Dolby though. Very few in the history of Earth have done so much for a surname. You can't read Dolby and not think quality audio.
Now that I think of it, I can't think of a audio tech brand, except dolby.. its such a common thing. I'm off to google who are dolby's biggest competitors.
Bose, obviously. But also Mcintosh, Nakamichi, Harman/Kardon, Sennheiser, and Bang Olufsen (Peter Bang was the audiophile in that duo).
But Dolby is different in that he didn't actually make any consumer products. Everything was licensed to studios, OEMSs, theaters, etc. His brand was the Microsoft of the consumer audio world.
Sidney Harman, who died in 2011, gave his name and talents to a golden age consumer/professional audio company. Today Harman International is a holding company for many well-known audio industry brands. I think he is much better known for his financial, philanthropic, and political activities than his technical legacy.
http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/theory.html#history