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Verbal Camouflage: Euphemisms in Politics and Business
Retarded is still a word that means what it means, and that word is used. You may want to retard the timing on your engine if you're doing whatever it is that you would want retarded timing for, for example.
Retarded is still a word that means what it means, and that word is used. You may want to retard the timing on your engine if you're doing whatever it is that you would want retarded timing for, for example.
Two things with the "impacts the ground prematurely" example - firstly I'd like to see an example of this being used, it looks to me like the author has seen similar terms bandied about and paraphrased (and distorted the message in the process), which brings me onto my second point - thats not a euphemism, its a slightly more precise term for what happened. Crashed doesn't actually tell you anything - did it hit a bird, run out of fuel, fly through CAT which took a fin off? More likely is that it "suffered a mid-air guidance failure, which caused it to impact the ground prematurely" - see how that tells you a lot more than "it crashed?"
Two things with the "impacts the ground prematurely" example - firstly I'd like to see an example of this being used, it looks to me like the author has seen similar terms bandied about and paraphrased (and distorted the message in the process), which brings me onto my second point - thats not a euphemism, its a slightly more precise term for what happened. Crashed doesn't actually tell you anything - did it hit a bird, run out of fuel, fly through CAT which took a fin off? More likely is that it "suffered a mid-air guidance failure, which caused it to impact the ground prematurely" - see how that tells you a lot more than "it crashed?"
Just my 0.02 pennies
Obviously they're only giving a clearer description for the purpose of deceiving the populace.
Two things with the "impacts the ground prematurely" example - firstly I'd like to see an example of this being used, it looks to me like the author has seen similar terms bandied about and paraphrased (and distorted the message in the process), which brings me onto my second point - thats not a euphemism, its a slightly more precise term for what happened. Crashed doesn't actually tell you anything - did it hit a bird, run out of fuel, fly through CAT which took a fin off? More likely is that it "suffered a mid-air guidance failure, which caused it to impact the ground prematurely" - see how that tells you a lot more than "it crashed?"
Just my 0.02 pennies
Obviously they're only giving a clearer description for the purpose of deceiving the populace.
So it simultaneously informs those who are also probably more capable of putting the information into context and confuses the people who don't know much about airplanes other than that they're big scary things that take them places? Doesn't sound half bad to me.
Two things with the "impacts the ground prematurely" example - firstly I'd like to see an example of this being used, it looks to me like the author has seen similar terms bandied about and paraphrased (and distorted the message in the process), which brings me onto my second point - thats not a euphemism, its a slightly more precise term for what happened. Crashed doesn't actually tell you anything - did it hit a bird, run out of fuel, fly through CAT which took a fin off? More likely is that it "suffered a mid-air guidance failure, which caused it to impact the ground prematurely" - see how that tells you a lot more than "it crashed?"
Just my 0.02 pennies
Obviously they're only giving a clearer description for the purpose of deceiving the populace.
So it simultaneously informs those who are also probably more capable of putting the information into context and confuses the people who don't know much about airplanes other than that they're big scary things that take them places? Doesn't sound half bad to me.
What? All you need to know about airplanes for that sentence to make sense is that they fly. Well, assuming that sentence were about airplanes, which it's not.
Retarded is still a word that means what it means, and that word is used. You may want to retard the timing on your engine if you're doing whatever it is that you would want retarded timing for, for example.
Ah, I still remember the time this one dumb kid brought his equally dumb parents to school to yell at the French teacher for calling him "retard" . . . when he had been late for class.
I have to say though I don't get many of the OP's euphanisms either - that is, have never seen them used before.
"Adult entertainer" doesn't even mean "prostitute," it means "stripper" or possibly "porn actor." The nicer term for prostitute is usually "escort." Some of your other examples are more precise than the terms they're replacing, and the others are rarely if ever used. Seriously, "minimally exceptional person"? No one uses that!
It was actually on a children's camp ad I saw once.
I always thought "special" was more insulting than "retarded," because while the latter is more descriptive (i.e. used to be an accepted medical term), the former simply co-opts an innocuous-sounding generic word and uses it to describe an entire class of people with very different conditions. Kind of like using "cripple" to describe anyone with a physical disability.
nosnibor on
When you're a spy, it's a good idea to give away your trade secrets in a voiceover on a TV show.
Many of these terms were made not to make a bad thing sound better, but instead to get rid of extraneous symbolism beyond the literal definition, as they are made by professionals who need specificity or a general categorization.
Harvesting includes all types of gathering in the lexicon of professionals involved in those actions. Strip mining is a type of mining is a type of harvesting. Collateral is a military term for unintended damages, including deaths, injuries, and destruction. Politicians habitually use technical language because they have to say how the first part of the party of the first part shall be known in this bill.
An example of a euphemism is actually the term area restriction device for land mines, which is historically accurate but now can only be applied to land mines used by Israel, as all other countries drop them out of airplanes to hurt anybody going through the general region rather than burying them around a specific location.
I'm trying to figure out how use of euphemisms would be bad writing even if the rather ridiculous claims being made about them were sound. Selecting the words that will convey the information you need to while giving the perspective of them that you want to give is one of the more critical skills of writing.
I could reference a chapter or 2 from George Carlin's book "Napalm & Silly-putty" but then you would not read it. He has more than a few paragraphs devoted to this subject titled "Euphemistic Bullsh!t" Read it or go watch an old HBO standup and laugh untill you cry.
"Adult entertainer" doesn't even mean "prostitute," it means "stripper" or possibly "porn actor." The nicer term for prostitute is usually "escort." Some of your other examples are more precise than the terms they're replacing, and the others are rarely if ever used. Seriously, "minimally exceptional person"? No one uses that!
It was actually on a children's camp ad I saw once.
Wait, what? You can't leave us hanging like that!
Speaking on-topic, euphemisms -the ones you are talking about anyway- serve two purposes: either to provide a phrase for professionals in a field to understand so they can better describe something rather than "it crashed" or "a slum." They function to be more precise, but do alas obfuscate the matter for the layman. *Shrugs* Not a big deal, I say.
Now the government and corporations of course use euphemisms because they want to put a positive spin on something, or they just want to cloud the truth. This is the second purpose of euphemisms. I recommend On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt if you want to learn more about political double-speak.
Now for one I don't believe "political correctness" (or for that matter, a lack of it) is slowly destroying our society or removing all controversy from our lives. The PC fight is itself a load of bullshit. That is, it is used to obscure real problems/facts and to divert and confuse the public. So it serves as a political tool. And it, sadly, often hurts professional lexicons and the professionals who use them. Allow me to give an example:
The term Intersex refers to people who, for one of several reasons, has an external appearance that does not match their sex chromosmes or internal sex organs. You may have heard someone use the term Hermaphrodite to refer to someone with this condition, but Hermaphrodite isn't quite the right term. Some species of frogs are Hermaphrodites, which means they have both male and female sex organs which properly function. An Intersex person is almost always sterile.
Intersexism isn't a "PC" term, it's a professional medical term. Yet it is treated like such when in the rare case it comes up in GLBT rights. (If you ban same-sex marriage, what about someone with messed up sex chromosomes or who medically doesn't have a working set of either types of sex organs?) So the PC debate acts as an excellent form of Bullshit and euphemisms itself, adding layer upon layer of obfuscation.
"Adult entertainer" doesn't even mean "prostitute," it means "stripper" or possibly "porn actor." The nicer term for prostitute is usually "escort." Some of your other examples are more precise than the terms they're replacing, and the others are rarely if ever used. Seriously, "minimally exceptional person"? No one uses that!
It was actually on a children's camp ad I saw once.
Wait, wait... "Minimally exceptional" or "adult entertainer"?
"Intersex" is actually a good example of a neologism that makes total sense. It encompasses a wide gamut of shared gender identity issues that run from transgenderism of unknown etiology through androgen sensitivity syndrome through chromosomal abnormality with a term that is (a) not loaded and (b) means exactly what it sounds like it means. It's actually one of my favorite words.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
"Intersex" is actually a good example of a neologism that makes total sense. It encompasses a wide gamut of shared gender identity issues that run from transgenderism of unknown etiology through androgen sensitivity syndrome through chromosomal abnormality with a term that is (a) not loaded and (b) means exactly what it sounds like it means. It's actually one of my favorite words.
*Nods* I admit it isn't the best example but I swear up and down I have seen "Intersex" (less than "transgender" admittedly) lead to negative reactions in a GLBT rights debate. People object to and question the legitimacy of such terms [Intersex, transgender, bisexual, etc.] ("They are just PC liberal euphemisms!") despite the fact they are medical terms (or sexual orientation terms in the case of "bisexual") that mean exactly what they sound to mean.
So yeah, tl;dr - GLBT terms and euphemisms are often in the center of PC debates and discussions of euphemisms, though terms like "differently abled" and "collateral" are much more often cited in Bullshit/euphemism discussions. Do yeah heh I guess I was framing the discussion with examples mostly.
Ha ha ha I totllay thought in my last post that ege02 saw "Adult entertainer" in a summer camp ad!
"Intersex" is actually a good example of a neologism that makes total sense. It encompasses a wide gamut of shared gender identity issues that run from transgenderism of unknown etiology through androgen sensitivity syndrome through chromosomal abnormality with a term that is (a) not loaded and (b) means exactly what it sounds like it means. It's actually one of my favorite words.
*Nods* I admit it isn't the best example but I swear up and down I have seen "Intersex" (less than "transgender" admittedly) lead to negative reactions in a GLBT rights debate. People object to and question the legitimacy of such terms [Intersex, transgender, bisexual, etc.] ("They are just PC liberal euphemisms!") despite the fact they are medical terms (or sexual orientation terms in the case of "bisexual") that mean exactly what they sound to mean.
So yeah, tl;dr - GLBT terms and euphemisms are often in the center of PC debates and discussions of euphemisms, though terms like "differently abled" and "collateral" are much more often cited in Bullshit/euphemism discussions. Do yeah heh I guess I was framing the discussion with examples mostly.
Ha ha ha I totllay thought in my last post that ege02 saw "Adult entertainer" in a summer camp ad!
Actually, I'm not even all that fond of "bisexual" as a term, because it reinforces a weird gender binary. There are plenty of people who get labeled bisexual that are attracted to the intersexed or genderqueer, but that's kind of ignored by the term. "Pansexual" works much better, but for some reason it doesn't seem to stick; oh well.
(Me too! I was wondering why on earth you'd send your kids to a stripper camp.)
Actually, I'm not even all that fond of "bisexual" as a term, because it reinforces a weird gender binary. There are plenty of people who get labeled bisexual that are attracted to the intersexed or genderqueer, but that's kind of ignored by the term. "Pansexual" works much better, but for some reason it doesn't seem to stick; oh well.
(Me too! I was wondering why on earth you'd send your kids to a stripper camp.)
I'd say there are those who are attracted to just men and women (bisexuals) and those who are attracted to people of all genders (pansexual)
(He he so... does that make us creepy? Jaded?)
On topic time! Someone mentioned (I think) That the OP was annoyed with bullshit and over-politeness instead of euphemisms. I second this sentiment. Bullshit is obfuscation. Overly polite people are kinda creepy and often-passive aggressive. Bullshit is a tool of politicians and spin-doctors. Overly polite people are often called "PC" in the most negative connotation. Now euphemisms can be fun, if you know what I mean! :winky:
On topic time! Someone mentioned (I think) That the OP was annoyed with bullshit and over-politeness instead of euphemisms. I second this sentiment. Bullshit is obfuscation. Overly polite people are kinda creepy and often-passive aggressive. Bullshit is a tool of politicians and spin-doctors. Overly polite people are often called "PC" in the most negative connotation. Now euphemisms can be fun, if you know what I mean! :winky:
(Curious? I've seen some really cool pole-dancing, but I don't know if I could get over the stigma to go to pole-dancing camp. Bah.)
The thing is, even if most of the examples are truly extra-polite, I don't see any harm in calling a garbage collector "waste disposal personnel." Both terms are quite clear as to their meaning, and if it makes the waste disposal guy happier to be called one than the other, why quibble about it? It's not like driving a garbage truck and picking up cans is a bad job worthy of derision; seems like it'd be just about as physically demanding as construction work, and we don't sneer at people in hard-hats (or, at least, non-douchebags don't). Some of the examples give extra information ("depressed socioeconomic area" is a lot more informative and helpful than "slum," and the first suggests cause-and-effect while the second one is just a slur).
The problem is more when the new phrase is obscuring the meaning of the old. For example (although I've never, ever seen this, and am skeptical it's in wide use anywhere), "minimally exceptional person." Reading that alone, there's no way I would take it to mean "disabled person." I'd probably guess it to be a term for, well, bums, or poor students or something. It's quite roundabout. It's especially problematic when the obscuration is deliberate, although I doubt most people take long to cotton onto the new meaning. If "negative cash-flow problem" becomes a common way to say "dead broke," then people are going to start reacting to it like they would to "dead broke," and it no longer really works as a dissembling strategy.
I died a little inside when that guy in H/A used the term "monthly friend" to mean PMS.
There's not really a plausible explanation for this response that doesn't amount to you being a giant baby.
Seriously, "monthly friend" is pretty tame. I could come up with far worse names for it. (Oh, and ege? He meant the actual period, not the PMS. Don't you know the difference?)
(Hint: PMS means PreMenstrual Syndrome, heavy emphasis on the Pre-)
I died a little inside when that guy in H/A used the term "monthly friend" to mean PMS.
There's not really a plausible explanation for this response that doesn't amount to you being a giant baby.
Seriously, "monthly friend" is pretty tame. I could come up with far worse names for it. (Oh, and ege? He meant the actual period, not the PMS. Don't you know the difference?)
(Hint: PMS means PreMenstrual Syndrome, heavy emphasis on the Pre-)
Not too heavy, though, or you'll sound like a dork.
I think ege would prefer that you give us a detailed day-by-day breakdown of what happens with an essay on the similarities and differences between regular blood from a cut and menstrual blood. Because otherwise you're clearly just trying to soften the blow and be all PC.
I think ege would prefer that you give us a detailed day-by-day breakdown of what happens with an essay on the similarities and differences between regular blood from a cut and menstrual blood. Because otherwise you're clearly just trying to soften the blow and be all PC.
Ege, dude, just let me know if you want the full scoop; I've got plenty of nice, grisly stories for your edification.
Posts
That's retarded.
lets get it started.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Ege: WHAT IS UP WITH AIRLINE FOOD?
It's actually still used as a medical term.
Well, either that or my mother is like the worst doctor ever.
Dude, your engine timing is retarded.
Just my 0.02 pennies
Obviously they're only giving a clearer description for the purpose of deceiving the populace.
So it simultaneously informs those who are also probably more capable of putting the information into context and confuses the people who don't know much about airplanes other than that they're big scary things that take them places? Doesn't sound half bad to me.
What? All you need to know about airplanes for that sentence to make sense is that they fly. Well, assuming that sentence were about airplanes, which it's not.
I have to say though I don't get many of the OP's euphanisms either - that is, have never seen them used before.
It was actually on a children's camp ad I saw once.
Harvesting includes all types of gathering in the lexicon of professionals involved in those actions. Strip mining is a type of mining is a type of harvesting. Collateral is a military term for unintended damages, including deaths, injuries, and destruction. Politicians habitually use technical language because they have to say how the first part of the party of the first part shall be known in this bill.
An example of a euphemism is actually the term area restriction device for land mines, which is historically accurate but now can only be applied to land mines used by Israel, as all other countries drop them out of airplanes to hurt anybody going through the general region rather than burying them around a specific location.
Wait, what? You can't leave us hanging like that!
Speaking on-topic, euphemisms -the ones you are talking about anyway- serve two purposes: either to provide a phrase for professionals in a field to understand so they can better describe something rather than "it crashed" or "a slum." They function to be more precise, but do alas obfuscate the matter for the layman. *Shrugs* Not a big deal, I say.
Now the government and corporations of course use euphemisms because they want to put a positive spin on something, or they just want to cloud the truth. This is the second purpose of euphemisms. I recommend On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt if you want to learn more about political double-speak.
Now for one I don't believe "political correctness" (or for that matter, a lack of it) is slowly destroying our society or removing all controversy from our lives. The PC fight is itself a load of bullshit. That is, it is used to obscure real problems/facts and to divert and confuse the public. So it serves as a political tool. And it, sadly, often hurts professional lexicons and the professionals who use them. Allow me to give an example:
The term Intersex refers to people who, for one of several reasons, has an external appearance that does not match their sex chromosmes or internal sex organs. You may have heard someone use the term Hermaphrodite to refer to someone with this condition, but Hermaphrodite isn't quite the right term. Some species of frogs are Hermaphrodites, which means they have both male and female sex organs which properly function. An Intersex person is almost always sterile.
Intersexism isn't a "PC" term, it's a professional medical term. Yet it is treated like such when in the rare case it comes up in GLBT rights. (If you ban same-sex marriage, what about someone with messed up sex chromosomes or who medically doesn't have a working set of either types of sex organs?) So the PC debate acts as an excellent form of Bullshit and euphemisms itself, adding layer upon layer of obfuscation.
Frustrating as hell, isn't it?
Wait, wait... "Minimally exceptional" or "adult entertainer"?
Because damn.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
*Nods* I admit it isn't the best example but I swear up and down I have seen "Intersex" (less than "transgender" admittedly) lead to negative reactions in a GLBT rights debate. People object to and question the legitimacy of such terms [Intersex, transgender, bisexual, etc.] ("They are just PC liberal euphemisms!") despite the fact they are medical terms (or sexual orientation terms in the case of "bisexual") that mean exactly what they sound to mean.
So yeah, tl;dr - GLBT terms and euphemisms are often in the center of PC debates and discussions of euphemisms, though terms like "differently abled" and "collateral" are much more often cited in Bullshit/euphemism discussions. Do yeah heh I guess I was framing the discussion with examples mostly.
Ha ha ha I totllay thought in my last post that ege02 saw "Adult entertainer" in a summer camp ad!
Actually, I'm not even all that fond of "bisexual" as a term, because it reinforces a weird gender binary. There are plenty of people who get labeled bisexual that are attracted to the intersexed or genderqueer, but that's kind of ignored by the term. "Pansexual" works much better, but for some reason it doesn't seem to stick; oh well.
(Me too! I was wondering why on earth you'd send your kids to a stripper camp.)
I'd say there are those who are attracted to just men and women (bisexuals) and those who are attracted to people of all genders (pansexual)
(He he so... does that make us creepy? Jaded?)
On topic time! Someone mentioned (I think) That the OP was annoyed with bullshit and over-politeness instead of euphemisms. I second this sentiment. Bullshit is obfuscation. Overly polite people are kinda creepy and often-passive aggressive. Bullshit is a tool of politicians and spin-doctors. Overly polite people are often called "PC" in the most negative connotation. Now euphemisms can be fun, if you know what I mean! :winky:
Nice strawman there.
And you completely missed the point.
Seriously though, euphemisms exist because generally someone somewhere is uncomfortable with something, and so they create a new phrase.
There's not really a plausible explanation for this response that doesn't amount to you being a giant baby.
Seriously, "monthly friend" is pretty tame. I could come up with far worse names for it. (Oh, and ege? He meant the actual period, not the PMS. Don't you know the difference?)
(Hint: PMS means PreMenstrual Syndrome, heavy emphasis on the Pre-)
Not too heavy, though, or you'll sound like a dork.
Ege, dude, just let me know if you want the full scoop; I've got plenty of nice, grisly stories for your edification.
Actually, it assumes that the audience is the giant baby.
I haven't heard anyone refer to the PMS like that unless they are talking to a 10 year old.
I mean, it's not your "friend" unless you're teaching your little daughter that it's not such a bad thing, or something.