He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend provided, of course, he really is dead.

Praise gets cheap the moment its object can no longer inconvenience anyone. The public dead make easy heroes because they will not contradict the eulogy, ask for anything, or turn out to hold opinions the room dislikes. The joke is aimed at that convenience, at the rivals and critics who discover a person’s virtues only at the funeral, not at what people say out of love when they have lost somebody close.

The useful move is to spend some of that generosity early. Tell somebody now what you would say about them later, in specific terms rather than general ones. And when you notice a person being celebrated only once they are safely out of the way, ask what they were denied while present.