epitaphologist

plural epitaphologists

1. rareOne who studies epitaphs.

   The old stones, covered by wild dill and skunk cabbage, are an epitaphologist’s delight.

   1977 September 25, “Reopened Silver Mine Changing Population In Oregon Town; Slowly Bringing Old And New Ideas Together”, in The Sunday Telegram, volume 66, number 346, Rocky Mount, N.C., page 46, column 6

   5 more examples

   It would seem, indeed, that a doubly keen perception of the ludicrous had need to befriend any one who essays epitaph writing, lest he should be led to perorations like that which concludes an in memoriam to certain deceased members of / the ball family, / in Nuneaton churchyard: / When death shall strike, great will be your falls, / For you will be like these poor Balls. / No doubt a great deal must depend upon the propinquity, and also on the sincerity of the epitaphologist.

   1870 December 1, “Epitaphs”, in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, volume 30, number 284, Brooklyn, N.Y., column 8

   The second was some kind of professional student: his like were to be found in the patiently seated waiting lines of the career bureaus, always ready to file for some obscure and pointless occupation—numismatist, dressage instructor, Neurospora geneticist, epitaphologist, worm rancher.

   1974, Harlan Ellison, “Catman”, in Approaching Oblivion: Road Signs on the Treadmill Toward Tomorrow, New York, N.Y.: Walker and Company, page 156

   In a collection of epitaphs, the epitaphologist Lady Johnson-Ferguson noted that this was to be found upon a stone near Scotland’s highest railway station at Dalnaspidal.

   1990, Raymond Lamont-Brown, “What did they dae?”, in Scottish Epitaphs, Chambers, →ISBN, section “Dalnaspidal, Perthshire”, page 39

   One indication of this are proverbs: “lying like an epitaph,” if no longer current, certainly was proverbial in the nineteenth century and earlier in the twentieth, in English, French, and Italian as frequent references in the “epitaphologist” literature indicate.

   1999, Harvard Library Bulletin, volume 10

   Sir—The verse that puzzled your epitaphologist (“The inevitable hour”, December 23rd): / We dance round in a ring and suppose / But the secret sits in the middle and knows / is one of Robert Frost’s stray, whimsical couplets.

   2001 January 20, Christina Gibbons, “Grave news”, in The Economist, page 8, column 4