Calling Stephen Fry

English isn't my native language, so every now and then, I come across a word or an expression that to the (comedy) outsider doesn't make much sense, if any at all.

As is the case with the use of "late".

Why, oh why, do you call dead people late? "Here's Miss Honeybottom, the widow of the late Lord Honeybottom." Of course he's late, he's d-e-a-d. It's not likely he's going to be early, now is it?

It also begs the question, if it really is better being late than never. I suppose, on a philosophical level, it may well be better being late than never, since late implies you actually were, whereas never implies you weren't. Oh, well. The argument would surely be enough to suck the life out of a kindergarden, so let's just leave it, shall we?

/JP