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Verbal Camouflage: Euphemisms in Politics and Business
ege02
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I'm reading a book titled On Writing Well. In it, author William Zinsser argues that euphemisms are one of the worst clutters in language. He finds it disappointing that they have become so common in our everyday conversation. He says they often get in the way of what we're actually trying to say, or give us a means of hiding behind political-correctness-gone-amok, or worse yet, vague rhetoric. It gives people, especially politicians, a way of hiding their mistakes or dispelling possible criticism against their actions.
Some common euphemisms:
Garbage collector -> waste disposal personnel
Prostitute -> adult entertainer
Slum -> depressed socioeconomic area
Town dump -> volume reduction unit
Bum -> hard-core unemployed
Disabled person -> minimally exceptional person
Invasion -> reinforced protective reaction strike
When a company makes layoffs, it is simply resorting to "involuntary methodologies." When an Air Force missile crashes, it "impacts the ground prematurely." When a corporation closes a plant, it is a "volume-related production-schedule adjustment." Companies that go belly-up have a "negative cash-flow problem."
This is one of the reasons why politics, to me, is so frustrating. It's not that they are fooling me, or you, but that there are people out there who eat this shit up.
Are these politicians using euphemisms to justify their actions simply to other people, or to themselves as well?
What are some euphemisms you commonly encounter?
Some common euphemisms:
Garbage collector -> waste disposal personnel
Prostitute -> adult entertainer
Slum -> depressed socioeconomic area
Town dump -> volume reduction unit
Bum -> hard-core unemployed
Disabled person -> minimally exceptional person
Invasion -> reinforced protective reaction strike
When a company makes layoffs, it is simply resorting to "involuntary methodologies." When an Air Force missile crashes, it "impacts the ground prematurely." When a corporation closes a plant, it is a "volume-related production-schedule adjustment." Companies that go belly-up have a "negative cash-flow problem."
As George Orwell pointed out in "Politics and the English Language," an essay written in 1946 but often cited during the wars in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Iraq, "political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. . . . Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." Orwell's warning that clutter is not just a nuisance but a deadly tool came true in recent decades of American military adventurism. It was during George W. Bush's presidency that "civilian casualties" in Iraq became "collateral damage.
Verbal camouflage reached new heights during General Alexander Haig's tenure as President Reagan's secretary of state. Before Haig nobody had thought of saying "at this juncture of maturization" to mean "now." He told the American people that terrorism could be fought with "meaningful sanctionary teeth" and that intermediate nuclear missiles were "at the vortex of cruciality." As for any worries that the public might harbor, his message was "leave it to Al," though what he actually said was: "We must push this to a lower decibel of public fixation. I don't think there's much of a learning curve to be achieved in this area of content."
This is one of the reasons why politics, to me, is so frustrating. It's not that they are fooling me, or you, but that there are people out there who eat this shit up.
Are these politicians using euphemisms to justify their actions simply to other people, or to themselves as well?
What are some euphemisms you commonly encounter?
ege02 on
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I'll be fine, just give me a minute, a man's got a limit, I can't get a life if my heart's not in it.
Because that's pretty much what I am due to two years of disability leave. :P
I am hard-core unemployed right now. I have no broadcast TV though. I need to pay Microsoft to watch anything on TV.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
All language is euphemism.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Also that made no fucking sense but in my brain it was a brilliant insight.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
I don't give a fuck about you people.
"I'm here to say that I care."
My buddies and I are making out like bandits.
"My tax plan will stimulate the economy."
We're going to kill as many brown people as it takes to secure oil futures, regardless of the cost to anyone else.
"The war on terror is necessary for national security."
Tar and feather him.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
I'm just waiting for the day someone completely runs out of new ones and has to cycle back to the beginning.
Like fashion. Although I don't think powdered wigs are going to make it back into the rotation.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Particularly since the old standard definiton of slums can actually be places that are very upwardly mobile and socio-economically advancing beyond areas which are not deemed slums but are declining in their prospects. If you gloss over those facts and focus solely on population density rather than taking the social and economis aspects into account, you're falling into the trap that fucked over those places in that last round of slum clearing.
My favorite is "harvest". Now it used to be that you harvested something that you planted, like harvesting wheat. But now harvest is used to describe the collection of any sort of resource. Its great because it seems to fit for anything.
Clear cutting --> Harvesting trees
Trawling --> Harvesting fish
Strip mining --> Harvesting diamonds (yes I have heard this)
Uh I don't think that's really a euphemism, just an evolution of the words definition.
Harvesting Minerals, Harvesting Energy, etc... all valid uses. Harvest isn't restricted to crops anymore.
Well its certainly turning into that. I dont know any way of finding a modern history of the use of the word, but it certainly is used euphemistically. Harvest has a very nice connotation, much better than some of the terms its replacing.
I was going to post more examples, but Wikipedia does an ok job.
So I don't understand the angst.
I'll be fine, just give me a minute, a man's got a limit, I can't get a life if my heart's not in it.
A person who would prefer such neutrality and objectivity is understandably offended by doublespeak.
Be the change you want to see yadda yadda.
When Writing Well, euphemisms are, well, flowery and unnecessary, and may obscure your point. But not all writing and speech is created with the intention of being direct. If your intention is to be direct, don't use euphemisms. Your speech and writing will be clearer and people will consider you a person of honesty (if you're lucky). Political speech, however, uses euphemisms for a very good reason, precisely because politicians don't want the voting public to be shocked and horrified at the outcome of some events. It hurts their chances of getting elected next year, obviously. No amount of hand-wringing about how politicians use doublespeak is going to change the way democracy works.
So my opinion on the matter is that well, yeah, euphemisms can make stuff harder to understand for some people. That's exactly why they're used, and people have solid motivatons for doing so. You need to be bright enough to see through them, and that's the only solution I see to the matter.
http://newnations.bandcamp.com
I dunno, harvesting has a strong hint of violence behind it, of sweeping through a field of grain and destroying everything to get at what you want. Clear cutting, trawling, and strip mining parallel harvesting far more than more careful methods of doing the same thing.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
But seriously, most of those euphemisms are euphemisms for euphemisms. And I don't think many of them are used seriously very often.
I think the worst euphemism is "War on Terror".
https://medium.com/@alascii
Or do you just call all disabled people "cripples" ?
https://medium.com/@alascii