Euphemism

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Wikipedia

A yellow sign with a pointed bottom. At the top is the number 5 in an oval with a blue background. Below it are the words "family planning", "feminine hygiene", "feminine protection" and "sanitary protection"
Sign at a Rite Aid drugstore using common euphemisms for (from top):

A euphemism is the substitution of a potentially offensive or unpleasant word or expression with one that is more pleasant or inoffensive.[1] Some euphemisms are humorous, while others use mild or neutral language to downplay certain concepts. They can often be used to soften profanity or discuss sensitive or taboo topics, such as disability, sex, bodily functions, pain, violence, illness, or death, in a more polite manner.

Etymology

Euphemism comes from the Greek word euphemia (εὐφημία), 'words of good omen'; it is a compound of eû (εὖ), meaning 'good, well', and phḗmē (φήμη), meaning 'prophetic speech; rumour, talk'.[2] Eupheme is a reference to the female Greek spirit of words of praise and positivity, etc. The term euphemism itself was used as a euphemism by the ancient Greeks, with the meaning "to keep a holy silence" (speaking well by not speaking at all).[3]

Purpose

Avoidance

Euphemisms are often used to avoid discussing sensitive topics such as death, sex, and bodily functions. They can be created for various reasons, including innocent intentions or deceptive purposes. Some euphemisms serve progressive causes.[4][5] The term "late" is identified as a euphemism for 'dead' or 'overdue' in the Oxford University Press's Dictionary of Euphemisms.[6]

Mitigation

Euphemisms are often used to soften or downplay the severity of large-scale injustices, war crimes, or other events that officials may want to avoid directly addressing. For example, the lack of written evidence detailing the exterminations at Auschwitz concentration camp, despite the significant number of victims, is "directives for the extermination process obscured in bureaucratic euphemisms".[7] Similarly, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to the invasion as a "special military operation" in his speech announcing the start of the conflict.[8]

Euphemisms are sometimes employed to soften resistance to political actions. For instance, linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the neutral Hebrew lexical item פעימות peimót (meaning 'beatings (of the heart)') instead of נסיגה nesigá ('withdrawal') to describe the phases of Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank (see Wye River Memorandum). This substitution aimed to reduce opposition from right-wing Israelis to the withdrawal process,[9] with Peimót serving as a euphemism for 'withdrawal'.[9]: 181 

Rhetoric

Euphemism is often used to soften the emotional impact of a description, serving as a persuasive tool to influence how something is perceived.[example needed]

Controversial use

Using a euphemism can be controversial, as shown in the following examples:

  • Affirmative action, a preference for minorities or the historically disadvantaged, usually in employment or academic admissions. This term is sometimes said to be a euphemism for reverse discrimination, or, in the UK, positive discrimination, which suggests an intentional bias that might be legally prohibited or otherwise unpalatable.[10]
  • Enhanced interrogation is a euphemism for torture. For example, columnist David Brooks called the use of this term for practices at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere an effort to "dull the moral sensibility".[11]

Online

"Algospeak" refers to the use of euphemisms online to circumvent automated moderation on platforms like Meta and TikTok.[12][13][14][15][16] It has been observed in discussions related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[17][18]

Formation methods

Modification

Minced oaths (phonetically)

Phonetic euphemism involves replacing offensive or blasphemous words with milder alternatives to reduce their impact. This practice, known as taboo deformation or minced oath includes altering the pronunciation or spelling of taboo words, such as profanity. Examples of this include:

  • Shortening or "clipping" the term, such as Jeez ('Jesus') and what the— ('what the hell').
  • Mispronunciations, such as oh my gosh ('oh my God'), frickin ('fucking'), darn ('damn') or oh shoot ('oh shit'). This is also referred to as a minced oath. Feck is a minced oath for 'fuck', originating in Hiberno-English and popularised outside of Ireland by the British sitcom Father Ted.
  • Using acronyms, such as SOB ('son of a bitch'). Sometimes, the word word or bomb is added after it, such as F-word ('fuck'), etc. The letter can also be phonetically respelled.

Substitutions (semantically)

Pleasant, positive, or neutral terms are commonly used in various contexts, such as sociopolitical movements, marketing, public relations, and advertising campaigns. These terms are often deliberately chosen to convey a specific message or create a certain impression.

  • meatpacking company for 'slaughterhouse' (avoids entirely the subject of killing)
  • natural issue or love child for 'bastard'
  • let go for 'fired/sacked'

Cockney rhyming slang can be used to soften offensive language. For instance, calling someone a berk is less harsh than using the more explicit cunt. Berk is derived from Berkeley Hunt,[19] which rhymes with cunt.[20]

Foreign words

Foreign language expressions or words may be imported for use or derived for a new word as a euphemism. For example, the French word enceinte sometimes became "encient" or was used instead of the English word pregnant;[21] abattoir into "abbatoire" became slaughterhouse, although in French the word retains its explicit violent meaning, 'a place for beating down', conveniently lost on non-French speakers; entrepreneur for businessman adds glamour; douche (French for 'shower') for vaginal irrigation device; and bidet ('little pony') for vessel for anal washing. Although in English physical "handicaps" are often described with euphemisms, in French the English word handicap is used as a euphemism for the problematic words infirmité or invalidité.[22]

Periphrasis & circumlocution

Periphrasis or circumlocution is a common linguistic phenomenon where speakers "speak around" a given word or concept without directly stating it. This practice often creates widely accepted euphemisms that substitute certain words or ideas.

Slang

The use of a term with a softer connotation, although it shares the same meaning. For instance, screwed up is a euphemism for 'fucked up'; hook-up and laid are euphemisms for 'sexual intercourse'.

Understatement

Euphemisms formed from understatements include asleep for dead and drinking for consuming alcohol. "Tired and emotional" is a notorious British euphemism for "drunk", one of many recurring jokes popularized by the satirical magazine Private Eye; it has been used by MPs to avoid unparliamentary language.

Metaphor

Doublespeak

Bureaucracies intentionally frequently spawn euphemisms as doublespeak expressions. For example, in the past, the U.S. military used the term "sunshine units" for contamination by radioactive isotopes.[23] The United States Central Intelligence Agency refers to systematic torture as "enhanced interrogation techniques".[24] An effective death sentence in the Soviet Union during the Great Purge often used the clause "imprisonment without right to correspondence": the person sentenced would be shot soon after conviction.[25] As early as 1939, Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich used the term Sonderbehandlung ("special treatment") to mean summary execution of persons viewed as "disciplinary problems" by the Nazis even before the systematic extermination of the Jews. Heinrich Himmler, aware that the word had come to mean murder, replaced that euphemism with one in which Jews would be "guided" (to their deaths) through the slave-labor and extermination camps[26] after having been "evacuated" to their doom. Such was part of the formulation of the Endlösung der Judenfrage (the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question"), which became known to the outside world during the Nuremberg Trials.[27]

Lifespan

Negro is an example of a once-innocuous euphemism that has become outdated and offensive.

Over time, euphemisms can become taboo words through the linguistic process of semantic change known as pejoration. In 1974, University of Oregon linguist Sharon Henderson Taylor dubbed the euphemism cycle[28] also frequently referred to as the euphemism treadmill, as worded by Steven Pinker.[29] For instance, the place of human defecation is a needy candidate for a euphemism in all eras. Toilet is an 18th-century euphemism, replacing the older euphemism house-of-office, which in turn replaced the even older euphemisms privy-house and bog-house.[30] In the 20th century, where the old euphemisms lavatory (a place where one washes) and toilet (a place where one dresses[31]) had grown from widespread usage (e.g., in the United States) to being synonymous with the crude act they sought to deflect, they were sometimes replaced with bathroom (a place where one bathes), washroom (a place where one washes), or restroom (a place where one rests). Or even by the extreme form powder room (a place where one applies facial cosmetics). The form water closet, often shortened to W.C., is a less deflective form.[32] The word shit appears to have originally been a euphemism for defecation in Pre-Germanic, as the Proto-Indo-European root *sḱeyd-, from which it was derived, meant 'to cut off'.[33]

Another example in American English is the replacement of "colored people" with "Negro" (a euphemism from a foreign language), which itself came to be replaced by either "African American" or "Black".[34] Also in the United States, the term "ethnic minorities" in the 2010s has been replaced by "people of color".[34]

"Venereal disease", which euphemistically associated a contagious infection with Venus, the goddess of love, lost its deflective force as the word venereal became more closely associated with the infection than the goddess and was abbreviated "VD". Later, this was replaced by the more clinical abbreviation "STD" (sexually transmitted disease), which has since been replaced by "STI" (sexually transmitted infection) in an effort to de-stigmatize testing for asymptomatic patients before they show disease symptoms.[35]

Intellectually disabled people were originally defined with words such as "morons" or "imbeciles", which then became commonly used insults. The medical diagnosis was changed to "mentally retarded", which morphed into the pejorative "retard" against those with intellectual disabilities. To avoid the negative connotations of their diagnoses, students who need accommodations because of such conditions are often labeled as "special needs" instead, although the words "special" or "SPED" (short for "special education") have long been schoolyard insults.[36][better source needed] As of August 2013, the Social Security Administration replaced the term "mental retardation" with "intellectual disability".[37] Since 2012, that change in terminology has been adopted by the National Institutes of Health and the medical industry at large.[38] Numerous disability-related euphemisms have negative connotations.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Euphemism". Webster's Online Dictionary. Archived from the original on 4 September 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2014.
  2. ↑ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert. "φήμη". A Greek-English Lexicon. Retrieved 27 May 2023 – via Perseus Project at Tufts University.
  3. ↑ "euphemism (n.)". Online Etymology Dictionary. Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 7 January 2014.
  4. ↑ "How strategic lingo swallowed progressive thought". Washington Examiner. 19 May 2023.
  5. ↑ "The moral case against equity language". The Atlantic. 2 March 2023.
  6. ↑ Holder, R. W. (2008). Dictionary of Euphemisms. Oxford University Press. p. 242. ISBN 978-0-19-9235179.
  7. ↑ Ryback, Timothy (15 November 1993). "Evidence of Evil". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 18 June 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  8. ↑ "Year in a word: 'Special operation'". Financial Times. 29 December 2022.
  9. 1 2 Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003). Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change. Springer. p. 181. ISBN 9781403938695.
  10. ↑ Affirmative action as euphemism:
  11. ↑ Enhanced interrogation as euphemism:
  12. ↑ Lorenz, Taylor (8 April 2022). "Internet 'algospeak' is changing our language in real time, from 'nip nops' to 'le dollar bean'". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 20 December 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  13. ↑ Kreuz, Roger J. (13 April 2023). "What is 'algospeak'? Inside the newest version of linguistic subterfuge". The Conversation. Archived from the original on 6 February 2024.
  14. ↑ Tellez, Anthony (31 January 2023). "'Mascara,' 'Unalive,' 'Corn': What Common Social Media Algospeak Words Actually Mean". Forbes. Archived from the original on 1 November 2023.
  15. ↑ Levine, Alexandra S. (19 September 2022). "From Camping to Cheese Pizza, 'Algospeak' is Taking over Social Media". Forbes. Archived from the original on 31 October 2023.
  16. ↑ Klug, Daniel; Steen, Ella; Yurechko, Kathryn (2023). "How Algorithm Awareness Impacts Algospeak Use on TikTok". Companion Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2023. pp. 234–237. doi:10.1145/3543873.3587355. ISBN 9781450394192. S2CID 258377709.
  17. ↑ Nix, Naomi (20 October 2023). "Pro-Palestinian creators use secret spellings, code words to evade social media algorithms". The Washington Post. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  18. ↑ "How pro-Palestinians are using 'Algospeak' to dodge social media scrutiny and disseminate hateful rhetoric". Fox News. 23 October 2023.
  19. ↑ although properly pronounced in upper-class British-English "barkley"
  20. ↑ "berk". Collins Dictionary. Archived from the original on 27 July 2014. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  21. ↑ "enceinte". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 13 June 2017. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  22. ↑ "handicap". Cambridge Dictionary.
  23. ↑ McCool, W. C. (6 February 1957). Return of Rongelapese to their Home Island – Note by the Secretary (PDF) (Report). United States Atomic Energy Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 September 2007. Retrieved 7 November 2007.
  24. ↑ McCoy, Alfred W. (2006). A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. New York: Metropolitan / Owl Book / Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 9780805082487 – via Internet Archive.
  25. ↑ Solzhenitsyn, Alexander (1974). The Gulag Archipelago. Vol. I. New York: Harper Perennial. p. 6. ISBN 006092103X.
  26. ↑ "Holocaust-history.org". Holocaust-History.org. Archived from the original on 28 May 2013. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  27. ↑ "Wannsee Conference and the 'Final Solution'". Archived from the original on 10 July 2018. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
  28. ↑ Henderson Taylor, Sharon (1974). "Terms for Low Intelligence". American Speech. 49 (3/4): 197–207. doi:10.2307/3087798. JSTOR 3087798.
  29. ↑ Pinker, Steven (5 April 1994). "Opinion | The Game of the Name". The New York Times.
  30. ↑ Bell, Vicars Walker (1953). On Learning the English Tongue. Faber & Faber. p. 19. The Honest Jakes or Privy has graduated via Offices to the final horror of Toilet.
  31. ↑ French toile, fabric, a form of curtain behind which washing, dressing and hair-dressing were performed (Larousse, Dictionnaire de la langue française, Paris: Lexis, 1979, p. 1891)
  32. ↑ AnaBerestean (4 August 2025). "Why Do We Call It a "Restroom"? The Origins of Bathroom Terminology". The Portland Loo. Retrieved 3 November 2025.
  33. ↑ Ringe, Don (2006). From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (PDF). A Linguistic History of English (1st ed.). New York City: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-928413-9. OCLC 64554645. OL 7405151M. Wikidata Q131605459.
  34. 1 2 Demby, Gene (7 November 2014). "Why We Have So Many Terms for 'People of Color'". NPR. Archived from the original on 12 December 2019. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  35. ↑ "About Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 25 March 2024. Retrieved 27 March 2025.
  36. ↑ Hodges, Rick (1 July 2020). "The Rise and Fall of 'Mentally Retarded'". Medium. Archived from the original on 7 December 2020. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
  37. ↑ "Change in Terminology: 'Mental Retardation' to 'Intellectual Disability'". Federal Register. 1 August 2013. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  38. ↑ Nash, Chris; Hawkins, Ann; Kawchuk, Janet; Shea, Sarah E. (17 February 2012). "What's in a name? Attitudes surrounding the use of the term 'mental retardation'". Paediatrics & Child Health. 17 (2): 71–74. doi:10.1093/pch/17.2.71. ISSN 1205-7088. PMC 3299349. PMID 23372396.

Further reading

  • The dictionary definition of euphemism at Wiktionary