Definition: An epitaph is the inscription upon a person's tomb in memory of that person. The practice goes back to ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, and those epitaphs are of considerable literary interest. More interesting still became the use of witty epitaphs in the form of riddles and puns on names and professions which arose in Britain and the United States. Benjamin Franklin's epitaph expresses his desire to "appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author."
Examples:
Some take epitaphs more seriously than others: "Sir John Strange / Here lies an Honest Lawyer,/ and that is Strange."
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