Hunting the wily euphemisms

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 20

Hunting the wily euphemisms

Fair of Speech: the Uses of Euphemism. Edited by D. J. Enright. Oxford University Press, 1985. 219 pp $36 (approx).

(Reviewed by

Glyn Strange)

The difference between euphemism and its opposite, dysphemism was recently highlighted in a clash between Messers Hawke and Peacock in Australia. Mr Hawke claims to be governing by “consensus” whereas Mr Peacock prefers to call it a “senseless con.” Government, “by consensus” is euphemistic because no government ever governs with the backing of a true consensus of all its citizens, and if "consensus” is arrived at by a few meetings of its most important people, it is a soft term for oligarchy, rather than an alternative for democracy. Mr Peacock’s preferred phrase coarsely reveals the worst aspect of what is going on, and the truth, if one exists in politics, lies probably somewhere in between. Robert M. Adams, in the most lively essay in this book, calls the euphemism a “deodorant of language.” Like most deodorants it has had private application, disguising references to death, illness, sex, and unsavoury bodily functions. So much has the euphemism been linked to bowel movements and the like, to say one is looking for the euphemism can lead to

instructions like “down the passage, second door on the left.” While most people now find references to such private matters funny rather than disgusting, the euphemism has gone public where its use appears to be for more insidious and revolting than ever. In a pluralist society there are no simple rights and wrongs, but many rights which may all be wrong if you look at them from someone else’s viewpoint. People scrutinise other people far more closely than before aided by vastly increased media access and a tremendous upsurge of interest in education of various kinds. The world is full of those who attempt to teach, inform, persuade or interpret, and as many who deceive, misinform, obstruct and misinterpret. Enright’s book is timely in that it confronts the situation, making it clear, in a series of essays by experts in various fields, how euphemism and dysphemism pervade our daily discourse. Although the meanings of the terms are stretched at times beyond recognition, the basic impulse behind the book remains valid and worthwhile. How do we tell a euphemism that is a lie from one that is kindly meant to soften an otherwise harsh statement? How do we distinguish honest plain-speaking from dysphemism that is mere boorishness?

Few answers are given, but at least the issues are raised. If you think about it, enough, euphemisms are everywhere, but two simple examples will suffice. No one is old any more. All old people are elderly which, less definite, is mucli nicer. Or they are senior citizens, which suggests promotion as well as respectability. Fair enough too. We should all be kind to the oldies (another euphemism). More disturbingly, no one is poor any more. In Britain the poor are underprivileged (but still privileged, mark you); here they are low income earners or disadvantaged. The poor would say that the dividing line is very thin, but the usual answer is to compare them to people in “developing” countries (by which argument it is never coid in winter since it’s not as bad as Antarctica). Such uses of euphemism give a perfectly respectable linguistic tool a bad name. These are simple and common examples. Enright's contributors dig much deeper and give a much more daring range of examples, which make the book well worth reading especially if one’s interest lies in slicing with a well-ground axe through the verbal subterfuges of admen, accountants, lawyers, sociologists, and others who use language as a means of obfuscation rather than communication.