Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this the other day in an announcement from AT&T about its negotiations with the CWA union about union contracts.

“Work Stoppage” is a euphemism for “Strike”.

Contrary to my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis, AT&T chose a three-syllable, twelve-letter, two-word phrase over a one-syllable, six-letter single word that says the same thing.

But that is a frequent characteristic of euphemisms: People go out of their way to avoid what they believe will be perceived negatively.

If you find yourself saying or writing a long phrase when you know that a shorter phrase or a single word will express the same thing, notice whether you are trying to hide a negative perception behind that long phrase.