Euphemism represents a mild or traffic circle look substituted
For one considered improper or excessively rough or blunt.
In order to develop the treatment on the term euphemisms, one has to put the construct in larger countries of cognition. First and first, euphemisms are to be found in the generous field of linguistic communication seen as a system of communicating by written or spoken words, which is used by the people of a peculiar state or country in order to guarantee the communicating procedure. The survey of Euphemisms is to be identified in the frames of Linguistics, more exactly, Lexicology, as one method of Censorship seen as the pattern or system of baning something. Censorship is a suppression of address or other type of communicating, which may be considered to be harmful or inconvenient to people, from a broad known set of regulations determined by of import commanding organic structure.
The term euphemism comes from Greek, where Eu signifies good or sounding good, the root pheme means address, and the suffix -ism means action or consequence. The full word means talking good of ; good address ; words of good portents. From a lingual point of position, J. M. Williams ( 1975 ) explains that when utilizing euphemisms people are in hunt of socially acceptable words for constructs of which they can non easy speak about. On the one manus, Neaman and Silver ( 1990 ) , describe the procedure as being a manner to replace a less pleasant word construction with a more unoffending one, in this manner the truth keeps its cogency and its niceness. On the other manus, H. Rawson ( 1995 ) underlines the mild and agreeable manner of word penchant alternatively of the coarse and painful one.
What is to be noted is the fact that the pick of words is meaningful, the choice of certain word constructions, harmonizing to different contexts in society, implies the rejection of others. Peoples develop a certain esthesia when making a certain subject, that for them represents a tabu, and so they try to do usage of this lingual device that is euphemism, in order to “ soften ” what they want to show in respect to a forbidden subject.
Harmonizing to Neaman and Silver ( 1990 ) euphemisms day of the month back from Ancient Greek, when words mentioning to Gods or other deities were merely used uttered by the priest in fright of blasphemy, for the common herd these being indefinable. Actually, the eupheme was a word used in topographic point of a spiritual word or phrase that should non be spoken aloud.
Etymologically, the eupheme is the antonym of blaspheme, which means evil-speaking. Euphemism was itself used as a euphemism by the ancient Greeks, and it meant ‘to maintain a holy silence ‘ ( talking good by non talking at all ) . Therefore, the common herd resorted to words derived from God ‘s and other deities ‘ features, such as the Almighty, or the Thunderer-thunder being the arm Zeus used. Besides, when mentioning to the Black Sea, they called it “ the Friendly Sea ” , for they were afraid of catastrophe at seafaring.
As stated by Keyes ( 2010 ) , one of the first euphemisms that appeared among the northern Europeans, was one replacing the name of the bear. Peoples preferred non to utilize its name, alternatively of which they used features that they found more appropriate: the honey feeder, the licker, or the gramps. Finally, the word bear derived from a chief feature that referred to the brown one.
This pattern of utilizing words ‘ features when mentioning to them, has led to the act of deforming. That is, by replacing a tabu word with its specifying features, people succeeded to organize a new replacement of that word, therefore, presenting a new derived word into linguistic communication.
It is thought that forbidden distortions have occurred in Indo-European linguistic communications, one illustration in English being the word “ donkey ” , which replaced the old-Indo-European-derived word “ buttocks ” . Another illustration is the word “ blowball ” , a replacement for pissenlit, which means “ wet the bed ” , which was perchance mentioning to the fact that the blowball was used as a diuretic.
A great figure of euphemisms in English came from words with Latin roots. Farb ( 1974 ) writes that after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066: “ the community began to do a differentiation between a genteel and an obscene vocabulary, between the Latinate words of the upper category and the lustful Anglo-Saxon of the lower. That is why a duchess perspired and expectorated and menstruated — while a kitchen amah sweated and spat and bled. ”
The Anglo-Saxon epoch is considered to be the Golden Age of linguistic communication look and the beginning of four-letter words insinuating, or even straight mentioning to sex. At that clip, as Williams ( 1975 ) states it, euphemisms were widely used, as it is obviously found in Geoffrey Chaucer ‘s The Canterbury Tales. The narratives contain a scope of euphemisms in topographic point of tabu words, such as cilium for a adult female ‘s intimate portion ( sexual organ ) .
In the late 16 century, euphemisms flourished, particularly those associated with royalty, faith and sexual personal businesss. The name of God was distorted to gallivant or abbreviated to od, bring forthing funny signifiers likeA ‘od ‘s my willA for “ as God is my will ” andA ‘od ‘s meA for “ God salvage me. ”
The Victorian Era is renowned for a battalion of sexual euphemisms, for replacing the footings used for organic structure parts. Hence, they spoke about white meat or dark meat, mentioning to a poulet leg or chest. Besides, they preferred “ in an interesting status ” instead than “ gestation ” ; and equivocations of the words darn, snake pit, and even pants were typical of the age.
Subsequently on, before the World War 2, there is a celebrated state of affairs that occurred at a dinner party in Virginia ( Keyes: 2010 ) : Winston Churchill asked the pantryman for some chest of poulet. Harmonizing to Churchill household traditional knowledge, a adult female sitting following to him censure the British invitee for utilizing this coarse term. And what should he had asked for? “ White meat, ” Churchill was told. The following twenty-four hours, Churchill sent the adult female a bouquet with the message: “ Trap this on your white meat. ” It is clearly seeable that Churchill was stressing the fact that this manner of softening the linguistic communication was really befoging the significance, shaving the truth.
Another singular illustration is one given by George Carlin, refering the alteration of the denomination of a status in combat that occurs when a soldier ‘s nervous system has reached the breakage point. During the First World War, this status was called shell-shock.
Then, during the Second World War, the status was euphemized: conflict weariness. After a piece, during the Korean 1950 War, the same status received the name of operational exhaustion. Finally, five old ages subsequently, during the Vietnam War, they were mentioning to a status called post-traumatic emphasis upset ( PTSD ) . It is imperative to state that renaming this status by pull stringsing the linguistic communication has greatly reduced the impact that the initial term made: by euphemising it, the term lost most of its importance that, when coming across it, people fail to detect its true significance. Therefore, euphemisms can sabotage appropriate attitudes towards serious issues.
This use of linguistic communication developed even more during the 20th century, for people started utilizing linguistic communication to intentionally hide the truth, mislead, confuse or deceive. The end of communicating switched to that of use: linguistic communication used to command thought and behavior. Cultural and political influences had rather an impact on linguistic communication, particularly American English, where euphemisms were used for topics like disease, political relations, money and war.
It may be said that euphemisms underwent a procedure of development. At first, in the crude society, people merely avoided adverting certain names, in fright of being punished for making otherwise. Afterwards, it was a affair of avoiding obscenity when communication, so as to accomplish elegance. Beauty was sought in every facet of the human life, therefore people made efforts to dress up words every bit nicely as they could. Soon after this, people took into consideration rightness: they used indirect word structures to accomplish niceness. These were euphemisms chiefly refering occupation rubrics and physical visual aspect.
Another alleged phase of the development of euphemisms is the camouflage: to be more precise, choosing for a more sanitised version of looks in order to render a less-disagreeable truth and a more obscure significance.
It is necessary to advert that, up to a certain point, people are extremely interested in utilizing euphemisms for self-presentational intents, and so for minimising the menace to the addressee ‘s face.
Besides that, the usage of the term politically right is widespread presents. In this facet, there is an effort to enforce a specific “ position ” that is inferred to be the right 1. This position trades with non utilizing footings to which people seem to hold developed high sensitiveness. In the present clip, it is a general belief that the usage of ordinary footings is no longer politic.
Over clip, different words have been euphemized and so, the euphemized term gained a new, more sanitised version, and so, by come ining the mundane linguistic communication, these looks have become non so euphemized, but more common, more ordinary. This leads to choosing for a more politically right word construction, therefore euphemising an already euphemized term.
More of import to state is the fact that a euphemized term is more often acquiring to the point where it receives a negative intension and, unluckily, is being used with a negative 1, as an abuse. This is an account for the visual aspect of other traffic circle looks created for the replacing of those that no longer connote that same inoffensive, positive significance.
