Word Choice – Choosing Between ‘Honorable, Respectable, or Decent’ Ceremony

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The words: "honorable", "respectable" and "decent" have some overlaps in meaning when it comes to "respect" toward someone / something.
Here, I am going to talk about a big enough ceremony that is socially and prestigiously acceptable.
That said, I have no idea which one(s) can be used for a ceremony while Google Ngram Viewer shows only "honorable" and "decent" can be used to define a ceremony.

However, there are many web cites on the internet that have used each word along with "ceremony".

Honorable:deserving praise and respect.
Respectable: large enough or good enough to be acceptable.
Decent: socially acceptable or good.

I would appreciate it if someone could help me with the following examples and let me know which option(s) work(s) better in each case and why?

  1. You are all welcome to attend this …….. ceremony where we remember and pay our respects to those who gave all so we may be free. (Said president at the ceremony.)

a. honorable
b. respectable
c. decent

  1. They held ……… ceremony for their mother's passing.

a. an honorable
b. a respectable
c. a decent

Best Answer

You are all welcome to attend this respectable/honorable ceremony where we remember and pay our respects to those who gave all so we may be free.

(Paying our respects to those gave all so we may be free). This tells us that we need to honour those that gave all (sacrificed something, most likely sacrificing their life)

They held a respectable/honorable ceremony for their mother’s passing.

(Their mother’s passing). This sentence honours their mother. They also pay respect to their mother.

I think that honourable would be a better option for the 1st one as those who gave all may or may not be family members, in most instances, they are not family members so it is advised not to write ‘respectable”.

I think respectable would be a better option for the 2nd one as their mother has definitely got to be their family/close relative. We hardly see people honouring their own family members.

I think decent won’t work for either of them. Respectable and honourable are interchangeable just that the two of them are used in different examples (above).

Decent means that the standard of something(e.g.a meal) is average. Take this sentence:

This meal is decent.

This tells us that the meal is of average quality, not too good and not too bad.

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