ipl-logo

American Heritage: Euphemism Language

683 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Role of euphemism in communication

According to the American Heritage Dictionary euphemism is "the act or an example of substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt, or offensive". Euphemisms exist in any language and their usage is determined by various factors – culture, religion, politics, gender, age, ethnicity (Popova,2010). Euphemisms is word that used to replace harsh or in other word, inappropriate word instead trying to use other form of words and phrases to make it sound more acceptable. This is called euphemistic language. An euphemism also is an expression intended by the speaker to be less offensive, disturbing, or troubling to the listener than the word or phrase it replaces .Euphemism is basically an indirect word or a phrase that …show more content…

It becomes important in the sense of not to hurt other people’s feeling. It is a way to make an appropriate reference to something that is unpleasant. For instance, the euphemisms for ‘die’ is ‘pass away’ or ‘a final rest and depart of one’s live’ (Siddiqui,2014). Next, it is also importance as we need to convey the message properly. So by using euphemisms , there will be no offended towards our writing or speech. The message will be conveyed appropriately by the help of euphemisms. Another example of euphemisms to indicate kindness is when we used ‘where is the rest room’ instead of ‘where is the toilet’ when we speak to people in a proper places. In addition, the uses of euphemisms prevent the nasty-effects of disagreeable-message-indigestion when it comes to receive and digest complicated messages …show more content…

For example, ‘ethnic cleansing’ instead of ‘genocide’. The term, ‘ethnic cleansing’ does not clearly represent to people’s mind about the horror of mass murder. The filtration of words made by euphemisms has improvised the language and make it sounds less inappropriate but in fact euphemisms has already violated the real images of genocide. It makes the lies and violent sounds truthful and acceptable. Euphemisms todays is used to be mask on something which is the negative sides of euphemisms where the truth is being hidden. The abuse of euphemisms has driven people towards intellectual dishonesty (Noronha,2013). It turns people into ignorance as it make us to blindly close our eyes to the human horrific realities. This is somehow, to some extent euphemisms give out negative

Show More
Related
1118 Words | 5 Pages

One may not understand that their use of words is powerful and have implications that affects all individuals. In the book, Illegal by, Jose Angel N. the readers read about how words people in the United States use to describe the author in American political discourse and how the laws that constrain the author are linked to specific vocabulary. In the forward section of the book the author talks about how phrases people use affects the undocumented community in the United States. As an example, Jose wrote that, “The language used to characterize undocumented immigrants has cast them almost exclusively in the form of lawbreakers” (xi). In that specific

Read More
909 Words | 4 Pages

He explains that the words themselves are not the problem, but it’s the meaning being put on the word by the users that can make them have a negative connotation. There are many words that have multiple meanings that can be repurposed for negative or positive meanings. Fairman gives us an example of this in his article. “For

Read More
309 Words | 2 Pages

“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power.” -Patrick Rothfuss. Everyone in uses figurative language in someway, you could be writing a paper, yelling at your sister, or maybe just talking to yourself. But you use it in someway, shape, or form.

Read More
547 Words | 3 Pages

Saying words that are typically viewed as “bad”. I knew about the word before, besides being subject to an area where the term was used instead of “swearing”, I have heard it elsewhere. 4. What does McCorkle mean by “Word Gestapo”? Why does she use this phrase?

Read More
270 Words | 2 Pages

In his essay “The World of Doublespeak,” William Lutz define doublespeak as “a blanket term for language which makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant attractive, or at least tolerable” (2013). Lutz goes on to claim “It is language which avoids, shifts, or denies responsibility” (2013). He explains the purpose of doublespeak is to “mislead, distort, deceive, inflate” (2103). Based on many of his examples, such as wording an airplane as an airplane that has had “uncontrolled contact with the ground,” or referring to a city slum as the resident of the “fiscal underachievers,” I feel he may overstate his own definition of doublespeak. While, the play on words in these examples does attempt to deceive the read and

Read More
2001 Words | 9 Pages

Also the euphemism for living on the streets, is homeless, and big-boned as the term for overweight. I believe that the people of today use euphemisms is because they do not want to offend others by being to direct, so they use euphemisms to get there point across but not in a harsh way. 14. In the novel, unwinding becomes a big business in which they make money while the population looks the other way, and avoids where the source comes from.

Read More
1125 Words | 5 Pages

“A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don 't function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart.

Read More
532 Words | 3 Pages

Art Spiegelman’s Maus, 1986, uses a positive and light-hearted genre, comic strip, to explain a gruesome event in world history. In the story, anthropomorphic dogs represent Jewish prisoners of concentration camps and the Nazi Party is made up of Cats. This explains a good portion of what the Holocaust was, while at the same time carrying the reader’s attention with a constant metaphor that enhances the plots focus. Creating real-world euphemism to the audience increases the chance of them understanding on how the author feels about a

Read More
729 Words | 3 Pages

In other words, the use of personification helps to continue to instill fear by giving harsh qualities to non-living

Read More
864 Words | 4 Pages

Euphemism usually expresses an indirect expression towards someone or something that can be considered harsh or unpleasant. Eleanor

Read More
572 Words | 3 Pages

but the situation it is used in is the most important part of using the n-word

Read More
268 Words | 2 Pages

Exogamy is the social rule that requires an individual to marry outside a specific culturally defined social group of which they are a member. The universal nuclear family is always exogamous. It is even said sometimes that exogamy results from the effects of the incest prohibitions. The social group beyond which marriage is required to take place may either be a lineage or a clan.  Examples of exogamy groups include, but are not limited to, people from the immediate family, people whom are considered kin, and those of the same sex.

Read More
716 Words | 3 Pages

Commonly when approaching a peer, teacher, or a stranger, the first phrase to be said is often a form of polite speech. Polite speech can be categorized by the use of phrases that show regards for others. With some people backing the sense that what is said is portrayed as literal speech, most of it is said for the sake of sounding welcoming and responsible. Having polite speech implemented into people’s day to day lives serves the function of creating a well developed impression of a person.

Read More
1125 Words | 5 Pages

There’s an old saying that “sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” In reality, that saying is wrong. Words hurt a person as much as punch or a kick can. It may not hurt someone physically, but it can scar someone mentally and emotionally. Due to the topics they are associated with, certain words or phrases can elicit strong reactions; some are positive, while others are negative but nonetheless, they all leave an impact on people.

Read More
1025 Words | 5 Pages

Ethnocentrism and its prevalence in U.S culture Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one’s own culture. Individuals who are ethnocentric judge other groups in relation to their own ethnic group or culture. I think The United States likes to refer to themselves as the “big mixing pot” of cultures. I would agree, we do have a wide range of different cultures, but that does not mean that we do not “evaluate and judge other cultures based on how they compare to our own cultural norms.” I think us as Americans feel this way, because we are too scared to change what we have learned and known since birth.

Read More

More about American Heritage: Euphemism Language

Related Topics

Open Document