A euphemism is a word or phrase which people use in place of terms which they consider to be more disagreeable or offensive to themselves and/or to their audience. The linguistic taboo may be an unspeakable name for a deity, such as Persephone, Hecate, Nemesis or Yahweh. When a phrase becomes a euphemism, its literal meaning is often dropped. Euphemisms are also used to hide unpleasant 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 known as doublespeak.

Contents

1 Euphemism and historical linguistics 2 The "euphemism treadmill" 3 Classification of euphemisms 4 The evolution of euphemisms 5 Euphemisms for the profane 5.1 Religious euphemisms 5.2 Excretory euphemisms 5.3 Sexual euphemisms 6 Euphemisms for death 7 Doublespeak 8 Other examples 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

Euphemism and historical linguistics

The methods of historical linguistics can reveal traces of taboo deformations. Several are known to have occurred in Indo-European. Examples include the original Indo-European words for bear (*rktos), wolf (*wlk^wos), and deer (originally, hart). In different Indo-European languages, each of these words have difficult etymologies because of taboo deformations—a euphemism was substituted for the original, and the form of the original word no longer occurs in the language. An example is the Slavic root for "bear"—*medu-ed-—which means "honey eater".

The "euphemism treadmill"

Euphemisms can eventually become taboo words themselves through a process for which the linguist Steven Pinker has coined the term euphemism treadmill, which is comparable to Gresham's Law in economics. In this process, over the course of time, a word that was originally adopted as a euphemism acquires all the negative connotations of its referent, and has to be replaced by a substitute. In extreme cases, the process can happen many times, and indeed may still be happening. For example, "Toilet room", itself a euphemism, was replaced with "bathroom" and "water closet", which were replaced (respectively) with "rest room" and "W.C.". "Funeral director" replaced "mortician", which replaced "undertaker", which replaced "gravedigger". "Shell shock" was later replaced by "combat fatigue" and then "Post-traumatic stress disorder".

Connotations easily change over time. Idiot was once a neutral term, and moron a euphemism for it. Negative senses of a word tend to crowd out neutral ones, so the word retarded was pressed into service to replace moron. Now that too is considered rude, and a result, new terms like mentally challenged or special are starting to replace retarded. In a few decades, calling someone "special" may well be a grave insult. Similar progressions have occurred with

crippled → handicapped → disabled → differently-abled

and

clerk → cashier → sales associate, etc.

Classification of euphemisms

Many euphemisms fall into one or more of these categories:

• Foreign terms (derriere, copulation)
• Abbreviations (SOB for "son of a bitch")
• Abstractions (it, the situation, go)
• Indirections (behind, unmentionables)
• Longer words (perspire, urinate)
• Mispronunciation (goldarnit, freakin)

There is some disagreement over whether certain terms are or are not euphemisms. For example, sometimes the phrase visually impaired is labelled 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 one's point seem more correct than opponent's.

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. Militaries at war 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. Likewise, industrial unpleasantness such as pollution may be toned down to "outgassing" or "runoff" — descriptions of physical processes rather than their damaging consequences.

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 "shit" and "piss" is often acceptable in adult conversation, but retains its euphemistic use with children and in prime-time hours. Most sexual terms and expressions either remain unacceptable for general use or have undergone radical rehabilitation (penis and vagina, for instance).

Religious euphemisms

• God/God damn:
  • goldarn
  • golly
  • gosh
  • gosh darn
  • gad
  • gadzooks

• Damn/Damnation:
  • darn
  • drat
  • durn
  • dang
  • tarnation

• Hell:
  • H-E-double-toothpicks (or "-hockey-sticks")
  • heck
  • Sam Hill ("What the Sam Hill is going on here?")

• Jesus:
  • Jebus
  • jeepers
  • jeez
  • gee
  • gee whiz
  • golly gee

• The Devil:
  • the dark one
  • the deuce ("The deuce you say!"—archaic)
  • the dickens
  • Old Nick

Excretory euphemisms

• urine/urinate:
  • number one
  • pee
  • piddle
  • tinkle
  • wee-wee
  • whiz
  • take a leak
  • relieve oneself

• feces/defecation:
  • bowel movement
  • droppings
  • dung
  • poo
  • poop
  • poopie
  • doo (typically in "dog doo", but see below)
  • dookie
  • number two
  • night soil (archaic)
  • stool

• toilets / bathrooms
  • men's room / women's room
  • restroom
  • the porcelin god
  • the throne
  • the crapper
  • the head
  • the john
  • the potty

While urinate and defecate are not taboo words, they are used almost exclusively in a clinical sense. The basic Anglo-Saxon words for these functions, piss and shit, are considered obscenities, despite the use of piss in the King James Bible.

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".

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". Slang expressions which are neither particularly euphemistic nor dysphemistic, such as "take a leak", form a separate category.

Sexual euphemisms

• The term adult for sexually oriented for pornographic. For example:
  • adult film for porno movie
  • adult actress or adult actor for porn star
  • adult film industry for porn industry
• erotic dancer for stripper
• sex worker for porn star, stripper, or prostitute

• genitalia:
  • crotch
  • gonads
  • groin
  • private parts
  • privates
  • intimate parts

• breasts:
  • bosom
  • chest
  • tits/titties
  • boobs/boobies
  • knockers
  • cans

• buttocks:
  • bum
  • fanny (A.E. only; means vagina in B.E. See: American and British English differences)
  • tush or tushy
  • bottom
  • posterior
  • rump
  • gluteus maximus (Scientific name; extremely formal and only likely to be encountered when describing the muscles of the buttocks from a medical point of view)

• fuck/fucking:
  • copulation
  • fornication
  • fudge
  • lay with or lie with. For example, "Harry lay with Sally"
  • know. biblical "Adam knew Eve"
  • sexual intercourse
  • sleep with

• "Put it up your rectum":
  • "up yours" (a shortening of "(stick it) up your (ass)")

• "Suck my sexual organ":
  • "bite me" (this phrase has a very aggressive connotation, suggesting that the person offering to acceed to the request would be putting himself/herself at risk)

The term pudendum for the genitals literally means "shameful thing". Groin and crotch refer to a larger region of the body, but are euphemistic when used to refer to the genitals.

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.

Most commonly, one is not dying, rather, fading quickly because the end is near. Death is referred to as having passed away or departed. Sometimes the deceased (likewise a euphemism) 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 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.

Contemporary euphemisms for death tend to be quite colorful, and someone who has died is said to have passed away, passed on, bit the big one, bought the farm, croaked, given up the ghost, kicked the bucket, gone south, shuffled off this mortal coil (from Hamlet), or assumed room temperature. When buried, they may be said to be pushing up daisies, sleeping with the fishes or taking a dirt nap. There are hundreds of such expressions in use.

Euthanasia also attracts euphemisms. One may put him out of his misery, or put him to sleep, the latter phrase being used primarily with non-human animals.

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, (more explicitly, terminate with extreme prejudice), wet work, to take care of one or to take them for a ride, to do them in, to off or waste someone. To cut loose (from U.S.' Sgt Massey's account of activities during the occupation of Iraq of the early 21st century) or open up on someone, means 'to shoot at with every weapon available'.

Doublespeak

What distinguishes doublespeak from other euphemisms is its deliberate usage by governmental, military, or corporate institutions. Examples of doublespeak include:

• collateral damage for unintentional killing or damage
• servicing a target for killing
• casualty for death or injury
• rightsizing, a euphemism for downsizing, a euphemism for layoffs, itself a euphemism for mass firing of employees.
• spontaneous energetic disassembly for explosion (reportedly used by a director of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant)
• protective custody for imprisonment without due process of law
• the Nazi term Endlösung ("final solution") as a description for the Holocaust
• comfort women as a term for prostitute which was then change to refer specifically to women forced into sexual slavery during World War II
• post-traumatic stress disorder, a euphemism for operational exhaustion, euphemism for combat fatigue, a euphemism for shell shock. Used as an example of dehumanization of language (particularly by the American comedian George Carlin). The terms were used in the Vietnam War, Korean War, World War II and World War I respectively.
• ethnic cleansing for genocide
• computer-implemented invention for computer program, or programming method, as used by EU governmental officials to legitimize software patents, which are specifically prohibited by the European Patent Convention but which they seek to legalize.

Other examples

Other common euphemisms include:

• restroom for toilet room (the word toilet was itself originally a euphemism). This is an Americanism.
• making love or sleeping with for having sexual intercourse
• motion discomfort bag for vomit bag
• sanitary landfill for garbage dump
• the big C for cancer (in addition, some people whisper the word when they say it in public)
• bathroom tissue or bath tissue for toilet paper (Usually used by toilet paper manufacturers)
• custodian for janitor
• sanitation worker for garbage man

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 series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the Banks family discusses Hilary's new boyfriend, 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.

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".

See also

• minced oaths
• bypassing
• politeness
• doublespeak
• Spin (politics)
• Toilet humour

References

• 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

External links

• Propaganda critic: Euphemisms
• Dead and Buried: Death Euphemisms