Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this phrase in a Range Rover advertisement on television this morning.

The adjective “residual” seems to have been adopted by Land Rover as a euphemism for the adjective “resale”.

The adjective “resale” could have sounded too cheap to the advertising decision-makers at Land Rover.

Or Land Rover’s advertising team might have decided that the adjective “resale” reminds new-car buyers that one day they will be selling those cars.

And reminding a new-car buyer that one day he or she will sell that car probably is not something that a car manufacturer wants at the top of a buyer’s mind.

Contrary to my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis, it seems that Land Rover preferred a four-syllable, eight-character word over a two-syllable, six-letter 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 longer word when you know that a shorter word will express the same thing, notice whether you are trying to hide a negative perception behind that longer word.

I suspect that all of my U.S. readers have read or heard the adjective “pre-owned” in automobile advertising over the past several years.

This adjective seems to have begun with the dealers of higher-end automobiles as a euphemism for the adjective “used”.

“Used” apparently sounded too cheap, so dealers of such brands as Lexus and Infiniti started to use “pre-owned” instead to describe the same-brand vehicles in their used-car lots.

Contrary to my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis, it seems that nearly all auto-dealership advertisers today — no matter whether they carry luxury cars or econo-boxes — choose a two-syllable, nine-character word over a one-syllable, four-letter 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 longer word when you know that a shorter word will express the same thing, notice whether you are trying to hide a negative perception behind that longer word.

My wife heard this a few days ago from a high-school student.

She noticed something that the student had just drawn, told him that he was very artistic, and asked him what else he had created.

He said that creating “aerosol art” was one of his favorite activities.

My wife had never heard this phrase but recognized it right away for what it was: a euphemism for graffiti.

Contrary to my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis, the student chose a four-syllable, ten-letter, two-word phrase over a three-syllable, eight-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.

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.

This is a popular statement in American English now.

For fun, I searched Google separately for “has a temperature” and “have a temperature” (each with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about 589,000 matches and about 427,000 matches, respectively.

But to say that someone “has a temperature” means nothing except for the negative connotation beneath its euphemistic form.

Someone usually says or writes “He has a temperature.” to tell the listener or reader, respectively, that the subject of the sentence has a higher-than-normal temperature.

But the noun “temperature” by itself has no positive or negative value.

Can you imagine someone, such as a non-native-English speaker, first reading or hearing “He has a temperature.” or “You have a temperature.”?

The statement would be meaningless to such a person.

The noun “temperature” must be modified by an adjective to give it value.

Otherwise, you are speaking in euphemisms.

This is a popular statement in American English now.

For fun, I searched Google for “You have an attitude.” (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about 46,200 matches.

But this statement means nothing except for the negative connotation beneath its euphemistic form.

Someone usually says “You have an attitude.” to tell the listener that he or she has a bad or negative attitude.

But the noun “attitude” by itself has no positive or negative value.

Can you imagine someone, such as a non-native-English speaker, first reading or hearing “You have an attitude.”?

The statement would be meaningless to such a person.

The noun “attitude” must be modified by an adjective to give it value.

Otherwise, you are speaking in euphemisms.

Have you ever heard someone say something similar to “The company made a quantum leap in productivity this past quarter.”, as if trying to say that a lot of progress was made?

I do not know the origin of the phrase “quantum leap”, but you should know that this euphemism, which is especially popular in American business, is essentially a self-negation.

The classic definition of the noun “quantum” is the smallest quantity of radiant energy that can exist independently.

A “quantum” in physics is the energy that is equal to the frequency of the associated radiation times Planck’s constant.

And a “quantum leap” refers to the discontinuous, instantaneous jump of an electron in an atom from one quantum state to another.

So taking a “quantum leap” truly refers to taking the smallest leap possible — not exactly what most Americans mean when they say it.

I suspect that many people misapply the phrase “quantum leap” so that they can sound smarter.

But they end up sounding a bit ignorant or pompous to anyone who has been exposed to even a little bit of modern physics.

Have you ever worked at a company that has laid off employees, been one of the “lucky ones” in the non-laid-off group, and heard a supervisor say something like this?

I know several people for whom today, because of a layoff, is their final day of employment at a major American company, and this kind of “Be sensitive …” advice came to mind.

Because this particular company has a lot of employees and therefore falls under the WARN Act, the company notified the laid-off employees sixty calendar days ago that today would be their final day of employment there.

The direct implication of “Be sensitive to those being laid off today.” is that those being laid off will be in a worse situation than if they had not been laid off.

The indirect implication of “Be sensitive to those being laid off today.” is that the listener will be in a better situation than those being laid off.

I am sure that at least some of those laid off will be in a worse situation, at least initially.

And anyone who is laid off suffers, at least initially, from another “L” word: loss.

But I believe that the long-term prospect for many is a different “L” word: liberation. After they work through the pain of the loss, many people review their strengths, begin to see new opportunities, and feel liberated.

And the ones who were not laid off, the ones who must now handle the additional tasks previously handled by those where laid off, are effectively told by their supervisors that they are the “lucky ones”.

You have to wonder who is “lucky” and who is not.

One more comment: I prefer “fired” to “laid off”. No matter whether I am laid off or fired, it means that I was not serving my company as well for my pay as someone who was not laid off or fired was serving my company for his or her pay.

So a “layoff” is effectively a firing.

Companies use the “layoff” euphemism to conceal the fact that they are firing employees.

The word “layoff” implies that a company later will “lay on” those laid-off employees — as if the company will start to pay them again after some period. Not!

If you believe, as I do, that a layoff leads to loss but can then lead to liberation, then you have to be optimistic for, and not just “sensitive to”, anyone being laid off.

P.S. If you are now at a company that has laid off other employees but not you, then you might want to review whether your job is still the right fit for you. For this exercise, I recommend a book titled No More Mondays, by Dan Miller.

The provocative subtitle of the book is “Fire Yourself — and Other Revolutionary Ways to Discover Your True Calling at Work”.

Read this book, and you either will renew your career in your current job or will find yourself looking for another job or self-employment.

And you truly will be a “lucky one”, too.

I often hear this phrase.

Problem:
The phrase draws attention to the perpetrator instead of to the victims.

Explanation:
Sorry about two blog posts in a row related to suicides, but I feel very compelled to write about this second topic.

To me, the phrase “suicide bomber” is a euphemism.

For the sake of better communication, it is best to avoid euphemisms.

The noun “euphemism” means the substitution of a vague or mild expression for one that people consider to be blunt or offensive.

The blunt meaning of “suicide bomber” is “a person who committed suicide by killing himself/herself with a bomb with the intent to kill other people — usually as many other people as possible — in the explosion”.

The problem that I have with the phrase “suicide bomber” is that it plays on the natural sympathy of readers and listeners who see or hear the word “suicide” instead of the natural antipathy of readers and listeners who see or hear the word “bomber”.

People see or read “suicide bomber” and focus on the word “suicide” as much as or more than they focus on the word “bomber”.

Unconsciously, their brains tend to say to them

• “Oh, poor guy! He committed suicide! I wonder what was wrong with him or his condition.”

instead of

• “That bastard! He bombed that market and killed a bunch of people! I am glad that he is dead.”

I truly believe that terrorist organizations have promoted the phrase “suicide bomber” as a marketing technique.

The phrase “suicide bomber” draws attention to a terrorist organization’s people and its goals.

If you tack on “homicide” to this phrase to get “suicide/homicide bomber”, then you reveal that the person not only killed himself or herself but also intentionally killed others.

But I prefer to take this to the next step by using “homicide bomber” — so as to draw attention away from the terrorist and his/her organization or cause and toward the victims.

The result is that the reader or listener then focuses on the crime and its victims instead of on the “poor, suicidal criminal”.

Sure, “suicide bomber” tells you that the bomber killed himself or herself intentionally during the bombing, and “homicide bomber” does not tell you whether the bomber used a roadside bomb or died, too, but the word “homicide” definitely tells you that the bomber killed others.

Being curious, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “suicide bomber” — 2,160,000 matches
• “homicide bomber” — 32,400 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used “suicide bomber” versus “homicide bomber” by a ratio of 66.7-to-1, which depresses me but must dazzle the marketing geniuses in terrorist organizations.

Solution:
“homicide bomber”

I heard this phrase the other day on the television program Dirty Sexy Money.

I knew what it meant — staggering drunk — but wasn’t sure about its origin, so I searched Google for “three sheets to the wind” (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about 70,500 matches.

According to one source, a “sheet” is a rope for securing a ship’s sail, not the sail itself. A “square-rigged” ship uses three ropes or sheets to tie a sail to the ship. If all three sheets are loose and therefore blowing in the wind, then the sail will be loose, causing the ship to go off course, just like a drunken sailor.

According to many articles, such as at World Wide Words, Pierce Egan in his 1821 work Real Life in London was the first to record the phrase “three sheets in the wind”.

This phrase has morphed since then to the much more popular “three sheets to the wind”.