This article considers the relationship with death by reflecting on an element of language that in many ways seems to be a representation (en abyme as it were) of the process that underlies the phenomenon of death. Stereotypes are the mechanism that best embodies the tendency of language towards petrifaction and extinction. The hypothesis here is that stereotypes produce a “frozen” sort of speech, lifeless statements that are somehow cut off from the creative vigour without which language becomes instrumental and ultimately withers, engendering nothing but cant. This is the consummation of the “dark nuptials” between death and stereotype.