Euphemisms

George Orwell in 1946 on politics and language: “All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.”

A euphemism is changing direct and straight-forward statements, which may be of unpleasant, inconsiderate or hurtful nature, with more fair-sounding words. Take for example;

“I was fired”

vs.

“I was relieved of duty.”

“John is dead”

vs.

“John is no longer with us.”

It’s polite and good taste to use euphemisms with your family and friends.

In science, academia and politics, however, there’s often too much at stake to be so polite. Here, euphemisms cause more harm than good, because they hide the true, actual meaning of a statement. Euphemisms camouflage or mask the truth of what really happened in the circumstances at hand.

“CIA used enhanced interrogation techniques toward captives”

vs.

“CIA tortured captives.”

Big difference, right?

Here’s George Orwell on euphemisms in his 1946 essay Politics And The English Language:

The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.

(The excerpt is from Orwell, George. Politics And The English Language. Project Gutenberg Australia, Public Domain Australia (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200151.txt))