Euphemism

A euphemism is an expression intended by the speaker to be less offensive, disturbing, or troubling to the listener than the word or phrase it replaces, or in the case of doublespeak to make it less troublesome for the speaker.

When a phrase is used as a euphemism, it often becomes a metaphor whose literal meaning is dropped. Euphemisms are often used to hide unpleasant or disturbing ideas, even when the literal term for them is not necessarily offensive. This type of euphemism is used in public relations and politics, where it is sometimes disparagingly called doublespeak. There are also superstitious euphemisms, based (consciously or subconsciously) on the idea that words have the power to bring bad fortune (for example, not speaking the word "cancer"; see Etymology and Common examples below) and religious euphemisms, based on the idea that some words are sacred, or that some words are spiritually imperiling (taboo; see Etymology and Religious euphemisms below).

Etymology

The word euphemism comes from the Greek word euphemos, meaning "auspicious/good/fortunate speech/kind" which in turn is derived from the Greek root-words eu (ευ), "good/well" + pheme (φήμη) "speech/speaking". The eupheme was originally a word or phrase used in place of a religious word or phrase that should not be spoken aloud. The primary example of taboo words requiring the use of a euphemism are the unspeakable names for a deity, such as Persephone, Hecate, Nemesis or Yahweh. By speaking only words favorable to the gods or spirits, the speaker attempted to procure good fortune by remaining in good favor with them.

Historical linguistics has revealed traces of taboo deformations in many languages. Several are known to have occurred in Indo-European languages, including the original Proto-Indo-European words for bear (*rtkos), wolf (*wlk^wos), and deer (originally, hart). In different Indo-European languages, each of these words has a difficult etymology because of taboo deformations — a euphemism was substituted for the original, which no longer occurs in the language. An example is the Slavic root for bear—*medu-ed-, which means "honey eater".

In some languages of the Pacific, using the name of a deceased chief is taboo. Amongst Australian Aboriginal people, it was forbidden to ever use the name or image of the deceased, so that today the Australian Broadcasting Commission publishes an apology to indigenous people for using names or images of people who have recently died. Since people are often named after everyday things, this leads to the swift development of euphemisms. These languages have a very high rate of vocabulary change. (Dyen, Isidore, A. T. James & J. W. L. Cole. 1967. Language divergence and estimated word retention rate. Language 43/1: 150-171.)

The "euphemism treadmill"

Euphemisms often evolve over time into taboo words themselves through a process described by W.V.O. Quine, and more recently dubbed 'the euphemism treadmill' by Steven Pinker. (cf. Gresham's Law in economics).

Words originally intended as euphemisms may lose their euphemistic value, acquiring the negative connotations of their referents. In some cases, they may be used mockingly and become dysphemistic.

For example, the term "concentration camp" to describe camps used to house civilian prisoners was used by the British during the Second Boer War, primarily because it sounded bland and inoffensive. However, after the Third Reich used the expression to describe their death camps, the term gained enormous negative connotation. Since then, new terms have been invented as euphemisms for them, such as internment camps, resettlement camps, etc.

Also, in some versions of English, toilet room, itself a euphemism, was replaced with bathroom and water closet, which were replaced (respectively) with rest room and W.C.

Connotations easily change over time. Idiot was once a neutral term, and moron a similar one. Negative senses of a word tend to crowd out neutral ones, so the word retarded was pressed into service to replace them. Now that too is considered rude, used commonly as an insult of a person, thing, or idea. As a result, new terms like mentally challenged or special have replaced retarded. In a few decades, calling someone special may well be a grave insult, and indeed among many young school students, it is already a common term of abuse, if not yet a particularly grave one. A similar progression occurred with

crippled → crippled → handicapped → disabled → differently-abled

although in that case the meaning has also broadened (and hence has been narrowed with adjectives, which themselves have been euphemised); a dyslexic or colorblind person would not be termed crippled. In the early 1960s, Bill Veeck, who was missing part of a leg, argued against the then-favored euphemism "handicapped", saying he preferred "crippled" because it was merely descriptive and did not carry connotations of limiting one's capability the way "handicapped" (and, in fact, all of its subsequent euphemisms) seem to do. In some cases, "differently-abled" would be the only accurate description of a person in any case: individuals with Asperger Syndrome (an Autistic spectrum disorder) often have an above-average IQ and occasionally exhibit savant abilities, but may be mind blind and tend to have a much lower EQ than non-autistics, resulting in significantly affected communication and socialization abilities. Likewise wrestler Kyle Maynard, a congenital amputee with only vestigial arms and legs, is demonstrably not "disabled" by his condition.

It can apply to naming of racial or ethnic groups as well, when proposed euphemisms become successively "corrupted". For example:

colored → negro → black → African-American → People of Color

This particular treadmill was mocked by Sinbad on Saturday Night Live, wherein a white character during a U.S. Civil War sketch refers to African-Americans as "Negroes", to which Sinbad replies, "Please, we prefer the more respectable 'boy.'"

A complementary "dysphemism treadmill" exists, but is more rarely observed. One modern example is the word "sucks". "That sucks" began as American slang for "that is very unpleasant", and is shorthand for "that sucks cock", referring to fellatio. It developed over the late-20th century from being an extremely vulgar phrase to near-acceptability. Likewise, scumbag, which was originally a reference to a used condom, now is a fairly mild epithet.

Classification of euphemisms

Many euphemisms fall into one or more of these categories:

Terms of foreign and/or technical origin (derriere, copulation, perspire, urinate, security breach, mierda de toro, prophylactic, feces occur)
Abbreviations (SOB for "son of a bitch", BS for "bullshit", TS for "tough shit", SOL for "shit outta luck", BFD for "big fucking deal")
Abstractions (it, the situation, go, left the company, do it)
Indirections (behind, unmentionables, privates, live together, go to the bathroom, sleep together)
Mispronunciation (goldarnit, dadgummit, freakin, shoot - See minced oath)
Plays on abbreviations (barbecue sauce for "bull shit", sugar honey ice tea for "shit", Maryland farmer for "motherfucker", catch (or see) you next Tuesday for "cunt")
Phonetic alphabet (Foxtrot for "fuck", Whiskey Tango Foxtrot for "What the fuck?", Bravo Sierra for "bullshit")

There is some disagreement over whether certain terms are or are not euphemisms. For example, sometimes the phrase visually impaired is labeled as a politically correct euphemism for blind. However, visual impairment can be a broader term, including, for example, people who have partial sight in one eye, a group that would be excluded by the word blind.

There are three antonyms of euphemism: dysphemism, cacophemism, and power word. The first can be either offensive or merely humorously deprecating with the second one generally used more often in the sense of something deliberately offensive. The last is used mainly in arguments to make a point seem more correct.

The evolution of euphemisms

Euphemisms may be formed in a number of ways. Periphrasis or circumlocution is one of the most common -- to "speak around" a given word, implying it without saying it. Over time, circumlocutions become recognized as established euphemisms for particular words or ideas.

To alter the pronunciation or spelling of a taboo word (such as a swear word) to form a euphemism is known as taboo deformation. There are an astonishing number of taboo deformations in English, of which many refer to the infamous four-letter words. In American English, words which are unacceptable on television, such as fuck, may be represented by deformations such as freak — even in children's cartoons. Some examples of Cockney rhyming slang may serve the same purpose — to call a person a berk sounds less offensive than to call him a cunt, though berk is short for Berkeley Hunt which rhymes with cunt.

Bureaucracies such as the military and large corporations frequently spawn euphemisms of a more deliberate (and to some, more sinister) nature. Organizations coin doublespeak expressions to describe objectionable actions in terms that seem neutral or inoffensive. For example, a term used for radiation leaked from an improperly operated nuclear power plant is sunshine units. Similarly, employees of the fast-food chain McDonald's refer to putting any food into a microwave as "putting it in the queue".

Military organizations frequently do kill people, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by mistake; in doublespeak, the first may be called neutralizing the target and the second collateral damage. Violent destruction of non-state enemies may be referred to as pacification. A common term when a soldier is accidentally killed (buys the farm) by their own side is friendly fire. ("Buy the farm" has its own interesting history.) e.g. ^*

Execution is an established euphemism referring to the act of putting a person to death, with or without judicial process. It originally referred to the execution, i.e. the carrying out, of a death warrant, which is an authorization to a sheriff, prison warden, or other official to put a named person to death. In legal usage, execution can still refer to the carrying out of other types of orders; for example, in U.S. legal usage, a writ of execution is a direction to enforce a civil money judgment by seizing property. Likewise, lethal injection itself is a euphemism for putting the convict to death by poisoning.

Likewise, industrial unpleasantness such as pollution may be toned down to outgassing or runoff — descriptions of physical processes rather than their damaging consequences. Some of this may simply be the application of precise technical terminology in the place of popular usage, but beyond precision, the advantage of technical terminology may be its lack of emotional undertones, the disadvantage being the lack of real-life context.

Euphemisms for the profane

Profane words and expressions are generally taken from three areas: religion, excretion, and sex. While profanities themselves have been around for some time, their limited use in public and by the media has only in the past decade become socially acceptable, and there are still many expressions which cannot be used in polite conversation. The common marker of acceptability would appear to be use on prime-time television or in the presence of children. Thus, damn (and most other religious profanity) is acceptable, and as a consequence, euphemisms for religious profanity have taken on a very stodgy feeling. Excretory profanity such as piss and shit may be acceptable in adult conversation, while euphemisms like Number One and Number Two are preferred for use with children. Most sexual terms and expressions either remain unacceptable for general use or have undergone radical rehabilitation (penis and vagina, for instance).

Religious euphemisms

Euphemisms for God and Jesus are used by Christians to avoid taking the name of God in a vain oath, which would violate one of the Ten Commandments.

Jews say "Adonai" ('my master') when praying or reading scriptures that directly refer to God by name as the name of God is ineffable and thus must not be spoken. When using the term in English, some religious Jews will write "G-d," leaving out the vowel, a practice also used in the written Hebrew (though this is because Hebrew is always written without vowels). Because of this, the "name" of God in ancient Hebrew writings is transliterated as JHVH, YHVH, or YHWH, known as the tetragrammaton, without vowels so that there is no agreement as to how the name would be pronounced if spoken, leading to such guesses as Yahweh and Jehovah.

Euphemisms for hell, damnation, and the devil, on the other hand, are often used to avoid invoking the power of the adversary.

Québecois French slang is particularly noted for use of religious euphemisms, many of which have an obscene loading.

Excretory euphemisms

While urinate and defecate are not euphemisms, they are used almost exclusively in a clinical sense. The basic Anglo-Saxon words for these functions, piss and shit, are considered vulgarities, despite the use of piss in the King James Bible (in Isaiah 36:12 and elsewhere).

The word manure, referring to animal feces used as fertilizer for plants, literally means "worked with the hands", alluding to the mixing of manure with earth. Several zoos market the byproduct of elephants and other large herbivores as Zoo Doo, and there is a brand of chicken manure available in garden stores under the name Cock-a-Doodle Doo. Similarly, the string of letters BS often replaces the word bullshit in polite society.

There are any number of lengthier periphrases for excretion used to excuse oneself from company, such as to powder one's nose or to see a man about a horse (or dog). Slang expressions which are neither particularly euphemistic nor dysphemistic, such as take a leak, form a separate category.

Sexual euphemisms

The Latin term pudendum and the Greek term αιδοίον (aidoion) for the genitals literally mean "shameful thing". Groin and crotch refer to a larger region of the body, but are euphemistic when used to refer to the genitals. Euphemisms are more common in reference to sexual practices or orientations, particularly non-heterosexual ones, as shown in this quote from the UK version of Queer as Folk, which includes both euphemisms and dysphemisms regarding male homosexuality:

Because I'm queer, I'm gay, I'm homosexual, I'm a poof, I'm a poofter, I'm a ponce, I'm a bum boy, batty boy, backside artist, bugger, I'm bent, I am that arse bandit, I lift those shirts, I'm a faggot-arsed, fudgepackin', shitstabbin' uphill gardener. I dine at the downstairs restaurant, I dance at the other end of the ballroom, I'm Moses and the parting of the red cheeks. I fuck and am fucked, I suck and am sucked, I rim them and wank them, and every single man has had the fucking time of his life, and I'm not a pervert.

Virtually all other sexual terms are still considered profane and unacceptable for use even in a euphemistic sense.

Euphemisms for death

The English language contains numerous euphemisms related to dying, death, burial, and the people and places which deal with death. The practice of using euphemisms for death is likely to have originated with the "magical" belief that to speak the word 'death' was to invite death; where to "draw Death's attention" is the ultimate bad-fortune -- a common theory holds that death is a taboo subject in most English-speaking cultures for precisely this reason. It may be said that one is not dying, but fading quickly because the end is near. People who have died are referred to as having passed away or passed or departed. Deceased is a euphemism for 'dead', and sometimes the deceased is said to have gone to a better place, but this is used primarily among the religious with a concept of heaven.

There are many euphemisms for the dead body, some polite and some profane, as well as dysphemisms such as worm food, or dead meat. The corpse was once referred to as the shroud (or house or tenement) of clay, and modern funerary workers use terms such as the loved one (title of a novel about Hollywood undertakers by Evelyn Waugh) or the dearly departed. (They themselves have given up the euphemism funeral director for grief therapist, and hold arrangement conferences with relatives.) Among themselves, mortuary technicians often refer to the corpse as the client. A recently dead person may be referred to as "the late John Doe."

Contemporary euphemisms and dysphemisms for death tend to be quite colorful, and someone who has died is said to have passed away, passed on, checked out, bit the big one, kicked the bucket, bit the dust, bought the farm, cashed in their chips, croaked, given up the ghost (originally a more respectful term), gone south, shuffled off this mortal coil (from William Shakespeare's Hamlet), or assumed room temperature. When buried, they may be said to be pushing up daisies or sleeping the big sleep or taking a dirt nap or six feet under. There are hundreds of such expressions in use. (Old Burma-Shave jingle: "If daisies are your favorite flower, keep pushin' up those miles per hour!")

Euthanasia also attracts euphemisms. One may put him out of his misery, put him to sleep, or have him put down, the latter phrases being used primarily with non-humans.

There are a few euphemisms for killing which are neither respectful nor playful, but rather clinical and detached. Some examples of this type are terminate, wet work, to take care of one or to take them for a ride, to do them in, to off, frag, smoke, whack or waste someone. To cut loose (from U.S. Sgt. Massey's account of activities during the American occupation of Iraq) or open up on someone, means 'to shoot at with every weapon available'.

The Dead Parrot Sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus contains an extensive list of euphemisms for death, referring to the deceased parrot that the character played by John Cleese purchases (the sketch has led to another euphemism for death: "pining for the fjords", although in the sketch it was used by the shop owner to mean the parrot was not dead, but was merely quiet and contemplative). A similar passage occurs near the beginning of The Twelve Chairs, where Bezenchuk, the undertaker, astonishes Vorobyaninov with his classification of people by the euphemisms used to speak of their deaths.

Also a scene in the film Patch Adams features Patch (Robin Williams) dressed in an angel costume, reading out various synonyms and euphemisms for the phrase "to die" to a man dying of cancer. This evolves into a contest between the two men to see who can come up with more, and better, euphemisms, ending when Patch comes up with "to blink for an exceptionally long period of time".

Doublespeak

What distinguishes doublespeak from other euphemisms is its deliberate usage by governmental, military, or corporate institutions. Doublespeak is in turn distinguished from jargon in that doublespeak attempts to confuse and conceal the truth, while jargon often provides greater precision to those that understand it (while inadvertently confusing those who do not). An example of the distinction is the use by the military of the word casualties instead of deaths — what may appear to be an attempt to hide the fact that people have been killed is actually a precise way of saying "personnel who have been rendered incapable of fighting, whether by being killed, being badly wounded, captured in battle, psychologically damaged, incapacitated by disease, rendered ineffective by having essential equipment destroyed, or disabled in any other way." "Casualties" is used instead of "deaths," not for propagandistic or squeamish reasons, but because most casualties are not dead, but nevertheless useless for waging war.

Proper examples of doublespeak included taking friendly fire as a euphemism for being attacked by your own troops.

Common examples

Other common euphemisms include:

restroom for toilet room (the word toilet was itself originally a euphemism). This is an Americanism.
acting like rabbits, making love to, getting it on, doing it, or sleeping with for having sexual intercourse with
motion discomfort bag and air-sickness bag for vomit bag or barf bag
sanitary landfill for garbage dump (and a temporary garbage dump is a transfer station), also often called a Civil Amenity in the UK
3rd party unauthorized use for hacking
ill-advised for very poor or bad
pre-owned vehicles for used cars
correctional facility for prison
the big C for cancer (in addition, some people whisper the word when they say it in public, and doctors have euphemisms to use in front of patients, e.g. "c.a.")
bathroom tissue, t.p., or bath tissue for toilet paper (Usually used by toilet paper manufacturers)
custodian or caretaker for janitor (also originally a euphemism — in Latin, it means doorman.)
sanitation worker (or, sarcastically, sanitation engineer) for "garbage man" (also known as dustman in the UK)
Where can I wash my hands? or Where can I powder my nose? for Where can I find a toilet?. (This is also an Americanism. A person asking this in Europe may be directed to a room that contains only a washbasin and no toilet.)
Percussive maintenance for fixing by hitting

These lists might suggest that most euphemisms are well-known expressions. Often euphemisms can be somewhat situational; what might be used as a euphemism in a conversation between two friends might make no sense to a third person. In this case, the euphemism is being used as a type of innuendo. As an example, in the television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the Banks family (who are black) discuss Aunt Janice's fiance, who happens to be white, using tall as a euphemism for white. Will, who apparently doesn't catch on, remarks that he is the only one who seems to notice the new boyfriend is white. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a king tries to get his son to marry an unattractive woman by claiming that she has "huge... tracts of land". This is either a reference to her wealth or her large breasts. The second meaning has become popular, especially through Peter David's use of the term in the first issue of Young Justice when Robin used the term to describe Mighty Endowed.

The inflation of occupational titles is similar to the euphemism treadmill. For instance, the engineering professions have traditionally resisted the tendency by other technical trades to appropriate the prestige of the title engineer. Most people calling themselves software engineers or network engineers are not, in fact, accredited in engineering (and in many jurisdictions it is techically illegal to use the term without a currently valid State certification, though widely unenforced). Extreme cases, such as sanitation engineer for janitor are cited humorously more often than they are used seriously.

In the television cartoon series "The Flintstones", Fred takes a job as the live-in superintendent of a large apartment building and is given a title using the word engineer to make his job sound more important than it actually is. As he and his wife are moving in, a policeman is about to write him a parking ticket for being illegally parked in front of the building. He informs the officer that he is (as the building's owner referred to him) the "Resident Stationary Engineer" for the building. The cop turns to him and says, "I don't care if you are the janitor, move this car now!"

Less extreme cases, such as custodian for janitor, are considered more terms of respect than euphemisms.

The word euphemism itself can be used as a euphemism. In the animated short It's Grinch Night (See Dr. Seuss), a child asks to go to the euphemism, where euphemism is being used as a euphemism for outhouse. This euphemistic use of "euphemism" originally occurred in the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? where a character requests, "Martha, will you show her where we keep the, uh, euphemism?". It is analogous to the 18th-century use of unmentionables for underpants.

References

Benveniste, Émile, "Euphémismes anciens and modernes", in: Problèmes de linguistique générale, vol. 1, pp. 308-314. published in: Die Sprache, I (1949), pp. 116-122.
Rawson, Hugh, A Dictionary of Euphemism & Other Doublespeak, second edition, 1995. ISBN 0517702010
R.W.Holder: How Not to Say What You Mean: A Dictionary of Euphemisms, Oxford University Press, 501 pages, 2003. ISBN 0198607628
Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression (ISSN US 0363-3659)

External links

slang | Figures of speech | Rhetoric

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Euphemism