Talk:Euphemism/Archive 1

I hope this page is at an appropriate level of (in)offensiveness. If anyone feels it is necessary to explain what the example euphemisms mean, I suppose it must be done. (Those taboos are powerful things,) -- Janet Davis

I'm not sure I agree with "longer words". If the word has the same meaning that the one not being used can you call it an euphemism?

Well, "urinate" is certainly more polite than "piss," isn't it? (Although perhaps in the strictest sense it's not a euphemism.) -- Janet Davis

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Apparently there is an opposite of a euphemism, which is most often called a "dysphemism" but sometimes called a "diseuphemism or deeuphemism," and so I think that the anonymous poster is correct. See for instance http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-most-recent/msg04202.html and http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-most-recent/msg04212.html --the most discussion I've found on it; most sites merely define it and move on. Merriam-webster has it that the word dates back to 1884.

But the existence of dysphemisms leaves it to someone to determine which words are the most accurate with the least connotation, to zero the balance, so to speak, and that's something I'll not attempt.  :-D

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Actually there are two rough opposites of euphemism, "dysphemism" and "cacophemism". The latter I think is generally used more often in the sense of something deliberately offensive, while the former can be either offensive or merely humorously deprecating. And yes, there is necessarily a lot of subjectivity involved, because connotations eaily change over time. "Idiot" was once a neutral term, and "moron" a euphemism for it. As is usually the case with evolving languages, negative usages win over neutral ones, so we had to come up with "retarded". Now that too is considered rude, so we have "challenged", and so on. A similar progression occurred with "reek/stink/smell/odor/fragrance"...I'm sure 40 years from now "fragrant" will be the vilest insult.

At any rate, a good question to ask is what is the purpose of an encyclopedia article on "euphemism"? I'm not as anti-dictionary-entry as Larry, but in this case I think it is clearly more appropriate to give an overview of the use of euphemisms, examples, history, etc., which is likely to be much richer than what one could do with a dictionary entry. --LDC

I'm not sure that "gay" is a euphemism. Meanings of words change all the time, and it isn't unusual for one meaning to supplant another over time. The fact that a word usually meant one thing but not means another doesn't make it a euphemism. And even if it were once a euphemism (I'm not convinced it was), a case could be made that it isn't any more. —Eric

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"spontaneous energetic disassembly" is most definitely a euphemism. There are no uses of this term on the web other than as a euphemism for "explosion": see this Google search.

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Uh, I don't think that "The process of coining euphemisms is called taboo deformation". It seems like this is true only in the limited cases where (1) the word is taboo, i.e. offensive or scary, rather than impolite or unflattering, and (2) the original word or phrase is modified, not replaced. E.g. http://www.vroma.org/~jhaughto/etydefinitions.htm --GGano

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• Examples include the original Indo-European words for bear (*rktos), wolf (*wlkwos), 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. The Germanic word "bear" means "brown guy;" the Slavic root (*medu-ed-) means "honey eater."
  • Is there any evidence that these are examples of euphemisms, rather than slang? Likewise, "gay" seems to be more slang -- and "lesbian" doesn't seem to really be either a slang term, nor a euphemism. Qwert