What is a "euphemism"?

Well, if you must know, it's "the act of substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered blunt, harsh, or offensive".

A great number of euphemisms in English come from words with Latin roots. Farb (1974) writes that after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066:

"the community began to make a distinction between a genteel and an obscene vocabulary, between the Latinate words of the upper class and the lusty Anglo-Saxon of the lower. That is why a duchess perspired and expectorated and menstruated--while a kitchen maid sweated and spat and bled."

In the "good old days" of the English language, there was a dazzling amount of delightful doubletalk not to mention a smattering of simply hilarious handles as seen below:

"brandy" -- referred to as "French Cream" by time-enhanced tabbies and dowager duchesses who added it to their tea (scandal broth)

"breeches" -- bumfiddles, galligaskins, inexpressibles

"brewer" -- Brother of the Bung

"constable" -- bus-napper

"coachman" -- Brother of the Whip

"dealer in fruit" -- costard monger

"eggs" -- cackling farts

"foot boy" -- catch fart

"footman" -- bone picker

"fiddler" -- gut scraper or tormentor of cat gut

"indigent" -- Gentleman of Three Outs, i.e. without money, without wit, and without manners

"match-maker" -- buttock broker

"parson" -- autem bawler who conducts his affairs in an "autem cacle tub" (church meeting hall)

"pimp" -- Brother of the Gusset

"roundabout story or way" - circumbendibus

"salesman's shop" -- Bow-Wow Shop (because the servant barks and the master bites)

"Sargeant At Arms" -- Brother of the Coif

"schoolmaster" -- bum brusher

"shoe-making" -- the art of gentle craft

"tea" -- cat lap, scandal broth

"undertaker" -- embalming surgeon

"upholsterer" -- bug-hunter

"wife" -- comfortable importance

There are plenty of words for places we need but would like to avoid in polite conversation:

Brothel: common bawdy house, house of entertainment, house of ill-repute, massage parlor, red-light establishment, (where littering and loitering are strictly prohibited).

Garbage Dump: Sanitary landfill, municipal refuse yard

Jail: hoosegow, holding unit, secure facility

One Room Living Unit: alternative lifestyle choice, smart-growth choice, studio suite, efficiency unit, granny suite, transit-oriented young lifestyle choice

Public Toilet: bathroom, comfort station, place of convenience, place of ease, public washroom, powder room, gentleman's quarters, "his" and "hers", ladies room, men's room, water closet, washroom

Elderly Accommodation: senior-oriented residence, continum of care lifestyle community, all-inclusive retirement living community, full-service lifestyle residence, assisted-living facility, independent-living facility, wellness and vitality residence

Neil Postman in his book, Crazy Talk Stupid Talk (New York, Delacorte Press, 1976), suggests that a euphemism is an exalted term used in place of a down-to-earth term, or "an attempt to give prettier term to an uglier reality."

So, taking our cue from this learned author, there are oodles of pretty names one can use to describe unpleasant realities of life such as "death" and "taxes".

It seems that "taxes" are getting such a bad rap these days that spin-doctors have been working overtime to come up with new variations on one very unpleasant civic duty, to submit to taxation ...otherwise known as "the process of plucking the most amount of feathers from a goose with the least amount of hissing." Whoa, let's celebrate "Tax Free Day"!

It is therefore not surprising that we have an amusing array of terms for taxation: "access fees/charges", "carbon footprint contributions", "civic assessment fees", "direct universal service support", "economic incentives", "economic stimulus packages", "environmental externality factors", "impact fees", "income shifting options", "innovative sources of financing", "late fees", "redistribution of wealth alternatives", "redeployment of revenue", "restructuring of budgets", "revenue enhancements", "service charges", "socially-responsible public investments", "social support subsidies", "transfer payments", "universal service charges", "value-added revenue opportunities", and "user-fees".

As some have suggested, "taxation" (is a legal and mandatory system of professional if not progressive pick-pocketing), better known as a marvellous method of "robbing Peter to pay Paul".

And, when one is complaining about why one's wallet is just a tad lighter these days, just remember what Mark Twain had to say on this matter: "The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin."

The subject of unpleasant realities of life would not be complete without a glimpse at the time-honored taboo topic of "death". And, if one wishes to avoid using this five-letter word, there are a myriad of other quaint if not quirky expressions from which to choose:

A
arbitrary deprivation of life, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, asleep, assumed room temperature, ate his last supper

B
be taken, bereft of life, bite the biscuit, bite the big one, bite the dust, bought the farm, bump[ed] off, buried, buy a pine condo, buy it

C
cadaverous, carked it, cashed in/out, ceased to be, check out, cold, conk, croak, crossed over, crossed the bar, crossed the River Styx, cut-down, cut-off

D
danced the last dance, deceased, dead, dead as a doornail, dead meat, defunct, demise, departed, destroyed, diagnostic misadventure of high magnitude, dirt, dirt nap, done for

E
eat it, enjoy his/her last dance, enter the slumber room, erased, executed, expended, expired, executive actioned, extinction of the person

F
failed to fulfill his/her wellness potential, failed to thrive, final solution, finished, fragged, fried

G
gathered to his people, get your wings, give up the ghost, going into the fertilizer business, going to the big place in the sky, gone, gone belly-up, gone into the west, gone to meet their Maker, gone to sleep, got a one-way ticket

H
heaven-bound

I
in a better place, in Heaven/Hell, in a kinder gentler place, in repose, in his/her box, in the casket, in the eternity box, in the grave, in the ground, in the mortuary, interred

J
joined the choir invisible, joined the White Buffalo in the sky

K
kicked the bucket, kicked off, killed

L
late, left us, lie down with one's fathers, lifeless, liquidated, lost

M
member of the Boot Hill brigade, metabolic processes are now history, mortified

N
negative patient care outcome, neutralized, no longer a factor, no longer with us, no more, non-living, nonviable

O
offed, off the twig

P
paid Charon's fare, passed away/on/over, permanently indisposed, perished, popped his/her clogs, popped off, push up the daisies, put down

R
remains, rest in peace (R.I.P.), returned to the ground, rode off into the sunset, rubbed out, run down the curtain,

S
sell the farm, shuffled off the mortal coil, six-feet under, sleeping with the fishes, snuffed, snuff it, snuffed out, sprouted wings, stiff, stone-dead, succombed, suffered an unfortunate turn of events, sustained a therapeutic misadventure

T
taken from us, terminal episode, terminally-inconvenienced, terminated, terminated with extreme prejudice, that good night, took his/her last breath, T.U. - Toes Up, turn into a ghost

W
wandering the Elysian fields, went to the big blue baseball field/shopping mall in the sky, whacked, with the ancestors, and last but not least, worm food.

The English language is full of colorful terms for the expulsion of "vagrant airs and volatile subjects" by members of the animal kingdom.

Those who perpetrate foul winds in enclosed places or at inopportune times such as "Puff the Methane Dinosaur" may be referred to as "frigging freepers" "flaming farteurs", "flutterblasters", "fundusbreakers" or simply those who are known by family and friends as "Flatus Factory.

The "random if not reticent release of a wayward wind", or perhaps several "entertaining emissions" may also be referred to in mixed company at a social gathering as "a cocktail party "calico", "a party paradiddle" or "a sumptuous slider". Scientific snobs also known as "Princes of Plotch & Scotch" prefer to define these "enigmatic emanations" as "self-processed, self-propelled and self-stoked organic fuels in a self-contained power plant".

Well, it seems that there are a variety of cute code words for the aging "baby-boomers" who are now referred to by marketers as "zoomers"!

The real question is whether they're willing to accept the entertaining euphemisms for the "elderly":

active-lifestyler, advanced in years, bat, biddy, chronologically-gifted, contemplative character, codger, cougar, crone, curmudgeon, dentured dandy, empty-nester, fogey, Freedom 55er, gaffer, geezer, golden-ager, granny, gramps, grey-hairs, Little Old Lady (LOL), Little Old Man (LOM), longer-living, mature individual, ninny, noteworthy for his/her character lines, octogenarian, old biddy, old coot, old dog, old fox, old soul, oldster, old-timer, over-the-hill, positive ager, prime-timer, retiree, salt-and-pepper generation, self-caring person, senior citizen, senior, seasoned citizen, silver fox, Third-Ager, wise woman, women of a certain age, woman of substance, and young-at-heart.

Ambrose Bierce, author of "The Devil's Dictionary" had a dandy definition of "euphemism, n. A figure of speech in which the speaker or writer makes his expression a good deal softer than the facts would warrant him in doing... ---, n. In rehetoric, a figure by which the severe asperity of truth is mitigated by the use of a softer expression than the facts would warrant - as, to call Mr. Charles Cocker nine-ty-nine kinds of a knave."

And, speaking of colorful expressions one might use use in everyday conversation instead of "knave", one could say, "My how I adore 'The Arrogant Frog', and 'The Roaring Gimlet' in the afternoon television drama about the nocturnal habits of Vikings, biodegradable hexagons, and the proper use of gravity in 'As the World Churns'!