Euphemism is a euphemism for lying.
— Bobbie Gentry
I have to go along with Ms. Gentry on this one. There is something inherently weasel-ish and underhanded about the average euphemism.
It’s a masquerading device designed to cushion the sting and befog the truth. Hence, people don’t ‘die;’ they ‘pass over,’ ‘buy the farm,’ ‘cash in their chips’ or ‘go to their reward.’
Even Mafiosi get mealy mouthed when it comes to talking about death. When mobsters whack a stoolie and dump his body in the river, he isn’t dead; he’s ‘sleeping with the fishes.’
Used to be if a junkie got caught with your television set under his arm, he’d be arrested and thrown in jail. But we don’t have junkies any more, we have ‘substance abusers.’ We also don’t have jails; they’ve been replaced by ‘correctional facilities.’
We don’t even have television sets anymore. Now they’re ‘home entertainment suites.’
Old folks, coots and codgers? Sorry, they’re now ‘senior citizens’ or, more excruciatingly, ‘golden agers.’ Pornography? That’s been upgraded to ‘adult entertainment.’
Please. Glen Gould, Margaret Atwood, the Group of Seven — that’s adult entertainment. A skin flick is just a skin flick.
As for baseball, you don’t have to be ‘way out in left field to recognize the game as a goldmine for euphemisms — especially euphemisms of the sexual persuasion.
If you ‘hit it off’ with that cute stranger down the bar with the right ‘pitch,’ chances are you’ll ‘hit a homer’ before the night is done. On the other hand, if you don’t keep your eye on the ball or you get your signals crossed you could strike out without even getting to first base. Oh well. You can always console yourself with the notion that the object of your affection was probably a switch hitter, perhaps even playing for the other team.
Politicians would probably wither up and die of asphyxiation without euphemisms. These people don’t spend taxpayers’ money — they ‘invest in Canada’s future.’ They don’t drill for oil; they ‘explore for energy sources.’
George W. Bush, an otherwise dim and spectacularly unqualified president, was positively poetic when it came to spinning euphemisms. The Bushies gave America The Clean Air Initiative — which permitted power plants to release more air pollution. They also created The Healthy Forest Initiative – which sanctioned increased cutting of trees.
Actually, I malign the man. George Bush didn’t create those euphemisms, a staff flunky did. George was busy cutting brush at the time.
But Bush wasn’t in the same league as that master of flannelmouthing, Richard M. Nixon. When a reporter caught Nixon in a flat-out lie, Nixon furrowed his brow, waved an admonitory forefinger and intoned “That explanation is currently inoperative.”
Ah, but no agency taps the BS potential of the euphemism as thoroughly and exhaustively as The Military. They’re the folks who turned invasions into ‘police actions,’ civilian butchery into ‘collateral damage,’ assassination into ‘termination with extreme prejudice’ And look at the linguistic sleight of hand they’ve done when it comes to describing what the horrors of war can do to the mind of a soldier.
In World War One it was called ‘shell shock’ — but that was a little too, well … real. By World War Two the approved term was ‘battle fatigue.’
Still a little too close to the bone. During the Korean War the term for the condition was massaged down to ‘operational exhaustion.’
Still a little raw. Today the label for those wretched grunts who return from war with hollow eyes, nightmare memories and permanently jangled nervous systems? Oh, they’re just down with a touch of ‘post traumatic stress disorder.’
Euphemisms can be used to hide a lot of ugly truths — and that’s not always a bad thing. There was that case of the 19th century ne’er-do-well son of a rich London family who was banished to Canada with a small allowance in the hope that he would get his act together. Unfortunately, Canada didn’t change him. He was a drunk and a thief and he ended his days at the end of a rope in Alberta. The judge who presided at his hanging felt no need to bring more shame on the man’s family but it was his duty to inform them of his demise. His letter to the family included this explanation:
“We regret to inform you of the passing of your son. He was participating in a public ceremony when the platform on which he was standing suddenly gave way.”
