Death and Tenses

In what tense should we refer to the dead? The question has long been asked, from Cicero to Julian Barnes. Answering it is partly a matter of grammar and stylistic convention. But the hesitation, annoyance, and even distress that can be caused by the "wrong" tense suggests that more may be at stake--our very relation to the dead. This book, the first to test that hypothesis, investigates how tense...