Euphemisms

“Work Stoppage”

Euphemisms

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.

“He has a temperature.”

Adjectives, Euphemisms, Nouns, Outsider's Perspective

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.

“You have an attitude.”

Adjectives, Euphemisms, Nouns, Outsider's Perspective

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.