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.

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 called doublespeak. There are also superstitious euphemisms, based (consciously or unconsciously) 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). Public relations (PR) deals with influencing public opinion, through the presentation of a clients image, message, or product. ... Politics is the process and method of making decisions for groups. ... Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Such language is associated with governmental, military, and corporate institutions. ...

Etymology

The word euphemism comes from the Greek word euphemos, meaning "auspicious/good/fortunate speech" 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 (see taboo). 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. A taboo is a strong social prohibition (or ban) relating to any area of human activity or social custom declared as sacred and forbidden; breaking of the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society. ... Bust of Persephone In Greek mythology, Persephone (per-SE-fo-neh) was the queen of the Underworld, the Kore or young maiden, and the daughter of Demeter. ... In later Greek mythology, Hecate (or Hekate; Greek Ἑκάτη Hekátē) was scarcely more than the goddess of witchcraft and sorcery. ... Nemesis (called Rhamnusia, the goddess of Rhamnus, at her sanctuary in Rhamnus), in Greek mythology, is the spirit of divine retribution, vengeful fate personified as a remorseless goddess. ... The Tetragrammaton in Phoenician (1100 BC to 300 CE), Aramaic (10th Century BC to 0) and modern Hebrew scripts. ...

Historical linguistics has revealed traces of taboo deformations in many languages. Several are known to have occurred in Indo-European, including the original 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". Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies Indo-European is originally a linguistic term, referring to the Indo-European language family. ... For other meanings, see Bear (disambiguation). ... Binomial name Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758 The Grey Wolf (Canis lupus), also known colloquially as just the wolf, is a mammal of the Canidae family and the ancestor of the domestic dog. ... Genera About 15 in 4 subfamilies. ... Etymology is the study of the origins of words. ...

In some languages of the Pacific, using the name of a deceased chief is taboo. 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. The Austronesian languages are a family of languages widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ...

The "euphemism treadmill"

Euphemisms can eventually become taboo words themselves through a process the linguist Steven Pinker has called the euphemism treadmill (cf. Gresham's Law in economics). Profanity is a word choice or usage which many consider to be offensive. ... Steven Pinker Steven Pinker (born September 18, 1954, in Montreal, Canada) is professor of Psychology at Harvard University and author of a number of popular books. ... Greshams law is stated as: Bad money drives good money out of circulation. Greshams law applies specifically when there are two forms of commodity money in circulation which are forced, by the application of legal tender laws, to be respected as having the same face value in the... Economics (deriving from the Greek words οίκω [okos], house, and νέμω [nemo], rules hence household management) is the social science that studies the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants. ...

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, toilet room, itself a euphemism, was replaced with bathroom and water closet, which were replaced (respectively) with rest room and W.C.; similarly, funeral director replaced mortician, which replaced undertaker. In American English, the original sense of homely ("comfortable, cozy") has been superseded by the once-euphemistic sense "plain-looking," which is now simply insulting ("ugly"). This article is about the vocation of a mortician and the death metal band; for the World Wrestling Entertainment superstar, see The Undertaker. ... American English or U.S. English is the form of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ...

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, and as 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. A similar progression occurred with

crippled → handicapped → disabled

The euphemism treadmill also occurs with notions of profanity and obscenity. Words once called "offensive" were later described as "objectionable," and later "questionable." Profanity is a word choice or usage which its audience considers to be offensive. ...

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 dick." It developed over the late-20th century from being an extremely vulgar phrase to near-acceptability. See suction for the meaning of sucking (e. ... Oral sex consists of all those sexual activities that involve the use of the mouth, tongue, etc. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...

Classification of euphemisms

Many euphemisms fall into one or more of these categories:

• Terms of foreign origin (derriere, copulation, perspire, urinate)
• Abbreviations (SOB for "son of a bitch")
• Abstractions (it, the situation, go)
• Indirections (behind, unmentionables)
• Mispronunciation (goldarnit, freakin)
• Plays on abbreviations ("barbecue sauce" for "bull shit")

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. Political correctness is the alteration of language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination or to avoid offense. ... Blindness can be defined physiologically as the condition of lacking sight. ...

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. Antonyms (from the Greek words anti = against and onoma = name) are word pairs that are opposite in meaning, such as hot and cold, fat and thin, and up and down. ... In language, both dysphemism (from the Greek dys δυς= non and pheme φήμη = speech) and cacophemism (in Greek cacos κακός = bad) are rough opposites of euphemism, meaning the usage of an intentionally harsh word or expression instead of a polite one. ...

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. Periphrasis is a figure of speech where the meaning of a word or phrase is expressed by many or several words. ...

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 Berkshire Hunt which rhymes with cunt. Profanity is a word choice or usage which many consider to be offensive. ... The phrase four-letter word refers to a set of English words written with four letters which are considered profane, including common popular or slang terms for excretory functions, sexual activity, and genitalia. ... American English or U.S. English is the form of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ... Fuck is among the strongest, most controversial expletives in the modern English language and probably the most well-known vulgarism in the world. ... Cockney rhyming slang is a form of English slang which originated in the East End of London. ... Cunt is an English term that refers to the human female genitals. ...

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. 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. Bureaucracy is a sociological concept of government and its institutions as an organizational structure characterized by regularized procedure, division of responsibility, hierarchy, and impersonal relationships. ... A corporation is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a Civil law systems may refer to corporations as moral persons; they may also go by the name AS (anonymous society) or something similar, depending on language (see below). ... Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Such language is associated with governmental, military, and corporate institutions. ... War is a state of widespread conflict between states, organisations, or relatively large groups of people, which is characterised by the use of violent, physical force between combatants or upon civilians. ... Pollution is the release of harmful environmental contaminants, or the substances so released. ... For other meanings of this phrase (book and album titles etc. ... ConTEXT is a freeware text editor directed at programmers. ...

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). --212. ... Look up Sex in Wiktionary, the free dictionary The members of many species of living things are divided into two or more categories called sexes (or loosely speaking, genders). ... Profanity is a word choice or usage which its audience considers to be offensive. ... Prime time is the block of programming on television during the middle of the evening. ... Look up Shit in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Shit is a vernacular word in Modern English denoting the feces, the solid byproduct of digestion. ... The penis (plural penises or penes) or phallus is the external male copulatory organ, and, in mammals, the external male organ of urination. ... Human female internal reproductive anatomy The vagina (from the Latin for sheath or scabbard ) is the tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female mammals, or to the cloaca in female birds and some reptiles. ...

See also List of euphemisms. This is a list of euphemisms. ...

Religious euphemisms

Euphemisms for God, Jesus, and Christ are used to avoid taking the name of God in a vain oath, which would violate one of the Ten Commandments. Euphemisms for hell, damnation, and the devil, on the other hand, are often used to avoid invoking the power of the adversary. The term God is used to designate a Supreme Being; however, there are other definitions of God. ... This 11th-century portrait is one of many images of Jesus in which a halo with a cross is used. ... The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are a list of religious and moral imperatives that feature prominently in Judaism and Christianity. ... Medieval illustration of the Mouth of Hell Hell (according to many religious beliefs about the afterlife) is a place of torment and pain. ... In Western Christian traditions, damnation to hell is the punishment of the Christian God for persons with unredeemed sin. ... The Devil is the name given to a supernatural entity who, in most Western religions, is the central embodiment of evil. ...

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). This page is about the version of the Bible; for the Harvey Danger album, see King James Version (album). ...

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. The word manure means some types of organic matter used as fertilizer for land. ... A zoo. ... Binomial name Gallus gallus (Linnaeus, 1758) This article is concerned with chicken as a domesticated fowl; for other uses of the term see chicken (disambiguation). ...

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. Periphrasis is a figure of speech where the meaning of a word or phrase is expressed by many or several words. ...

Sexual euphemisms

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. Sexual slang is any slang term which makes reference to sex, the sexual organs, or matters closely related to them. ...

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). Death is either the cessation of life in a living organism or the state of the organism after that event. ... Underwater funeral in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seafrom an edition with drawings by Alphonse de Neuville and Edouard Riou. ... Magical thinking is a term used by historians of religion to describe one kind of non-scientific causal reasoning. ...

Most commonly, one is not dying, rather, fading quickly because the end is near. Death is referred to as having passed away or departed. Deceased is a euphemism for 'dead', and sometimes a dead person may be referred to as "late"(i.e.: "The late (name)"). 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. The heavens are the sky, the celestial sphere, or outer space. ...

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. In language, both dysphemism (from the Greek dys δυς= non and pheme φήμη = speech) and cacophemism (in Greek cacos κακός = bad) are rough opposites of euphemism, meaning the usage of an intentionally harsh word or expression instead of a polite one. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... ... Evelyn Waugh, as photographed in 1940 by Carl Van Vechten Evelyn Arthur St. ...

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, tits up, 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 taking a dirt nap. There are hundreds of such expressions in use. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare and one of his most well-known and oft-quoted plays. ...

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, wet work, to take care of one or to take them for a ride, to do them in, to off, frag, smoke, 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'.

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. 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. Palin, Cleese and the dead parrot The Dead Parrot sketch (alternatively and originally known as the Pet Shop sketch) is a popular sketch from Monty Pythons Flying Circus. ... Monty Pythons Flying Circus (aka Flying Circus or MPFC, known during the fourth season as Monty Python) was the popular BBC sketch comedy show from Monty Python. ... John Cleese as Q in Die Another Day. ... The Twelve Chairs (Двенадцать Стульев) (1928) is a very famous satirical novel by Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, q. ...

Doublespeak

What distinguishes doublespeak from other euphemisms is its deliberate usage by governmental, military, or corporate institutions. A simple example would be the use of the word casualties instead of deaths, or taking friendly fire as a euphemism for being attacked by your own troops; see other examples on the list of euphemisms. Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Such language is associated with governmental, military, and corporate institutions. ... This is a list of euphemisms. ... This is a list of euphemisms. ...

Commentators such as Noam Chomsky and George Orwell have written at length about the dangers of allowing such euphemisms to shape public perceptions and national policy. Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages. ... George Orwell George Orwell was the pen name of British author Eric Arthur Blair (June 25, 1903 – January 21, 1950). ...

Common examples

Other common euphemisms include:

• restroom for toilet room (the word toilet was itself originally a euphemism). This is an Americanism.
• making love to, playing with or sleeping with for having sexual intercourse with
• motion discomfort bag and air-sickness 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, and doctors have euphemisms to use in front of patients)
• bathroom tissue or bath tissue for toilet paper (Usually used by toilet paper manufacturers)
• custodian for janitor (also originally a euphemism—in Latin, it means doorman.)
• sanitation worker for "garbage man"
• mixologist for bartender
• 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. If this question is asked in Europe to someone not used to American habits the person who asks the question might actually end up at a place where there just only is a washbasin and not at a place equipped according to their needs. On the other hand, Americans might find the more direct question rude if asked by Europeans who don't know about this euphemism.)

For more examples, see the List of euphemisms. Flush toilet A toilet is a plumbing fixture devised for the disposal of bodily wastes, including urine, feces, methane, semen and vomit. ... A roll of toilet paper. ... This is a list of euphemisms. ...

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. Innuendo can refer to: For Innuendo as a figure of speech please see Double entendre. ... The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was a sitcom which aired on NBC from 1990 to 1996. ...

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. Extreme cases, such as sanitation engineer for janitor are cited humorously more often than they are used seriously. Engineering is the application of science to the needs of humanity. ... Software engineering is the profession that creates and maintains software applications by applying technologies and practices from computer science, project management, engineering, application domains, and other fields. ...

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. Dr. Seuss is the pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991). ...

See also

• minced oaths
• bypassing
• politeness
• doublespeak
• List of euphemisms
• Spin (politics)
• Toilet humour
• F-word
• Framing (communication theory)
• Code word (figure of speech)

Minced oaths are corrupted forms of (usually religion-related) swear words that originally arose in English culture sometime before the Victorian Age, as part of the cultural impact of Puritanism after the Protestant Reformation. ... In communications and linguistics, bypassing is misunderstanding that develops when the recipient of a message infers a different meaning from that intended by the source. ... Politeness is best expressed as the practical application of good manners or etiquette. ... Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Such language is associated with governmental, military, and corporate institutions. ... This is a list of euphemisms. ... In public relations, spin is a usually pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in ones own favor of an event or situation that is designed to bring about the most positive result possible. ... Public reference to bodily functions such as urination and defecation is taboo in many cultures and thus arouses intense anxiety in many people. ... Fuck, a word connected to sexual intercourse, is among the strongest and most controversial vulgarisms in the modern English language. ... In communication theory, and sociology, Framing is a process of selective control over media content or public communication. ... A code word is a word or a phase designed to evoke a pre-determined meaning to certain listeners, while disguising the speakers true meaning by allowing them to use a word that sounds much more acceptible to an average listener. ...

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
• Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression (ISSN US 0363-3659)

Oxford University Press (OUP) is a highly-respected publishing house and a department of the University of Oxford in England. ... Maledicta (ISSN US 0363-3659) is a scholarly journal dedicated to the study of offensive and negatively-valued words and expressions. ...

External links

• Propaganda critic: Euphemisms
• Dead and Buried: Death Euphemisms
• Language & Power: Euphemism and dysphemism