Euphemism Quotes - page 2
Many of our services cost more than do similar services in Europe, because, although we have a substantial quantitative deficiency of public services, the decision-takers and policy-makers, both inside and outside Government as I have said before today, being themselves from the better-off (to use a popular euphemism) sectors of our society, not only demand the highest standards of provision of public services to meet what they consider their own essential needs (for example, in public car parks); but also find it difficult to think of provision for the rest of the population in terms of standards relative to our real total resources.
John James Cowperthwaite
To a linguist, the phenomenon is familiar: the euphemism treadmill. People invent new "polite" words to refer to emotionally laden or distasteful things, but the euphemism becomes tainted by association and the new one that must be found acquires its own negative connotations. "Water closet" becomes "toilet" (originally a term for any body care, as in "toilet kit"), which becomes "bathroom," which becomes "rest room," which becomes "lavatory." ... The euphemism treadmill shows that concepts, not words, are in charge. Give a concept a new name, and the name becomes colored by the concept; the concept does not become freshened by the name.
Steven Pinker
In general I wish we were in the habit of conveying our meanings in plain explicit terms rather than by indirection and by euphemism, as we so regularly do. My point is that habitual indirection in speech supports and stimulates a habit of indirection in thought; and this habit, if not pretty closely watched, runs off into intellectual dishonesty.
Albert Jay Nock
bulshytt ... Technical and clinical term denoting speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said. ...
It is inherent in the mentality of extramuros bulshytt-talkers that they are more prone than anyone else to taking offense (or pretending to) when their bulshytt is pointed out to them. ... One is forced either to use this "offensive” word and be deemed a disagreeable person and as such excluded from polite discourse, or to say the same thing in a different way, which means becoming a purveyor of bulshytt oneself.... The latter quality probably explains the uncanny stability and resiliency of bulshytt.
Neal Stephenson
If you resist, their job will be to 'take you into custody' - which is a euphemism for seizing you, handcuffing you, and taking you to jail. At this point, it will be obvious that the regulation's purpose is to force barbers to charge at least $8 - not by persuasion, but with a gun. Every government program, no matter how benign it may appear, is the same. Coercion is the reason - and the only reason - it is a government program.
Harry Browne
Ask any left-liberal American Jew if he supports a 'Right of Return' to Israel proper for every self-styled Palestinian refugee, and he'll likely recoil: 'Are you meshuga? Never! That's a euphemism for Israel's demise.' The very thing he rejects for Israel, the liberal Jew is inclined to champion for America: a global right of return to the US for citizens of the world.
Ilana Mercer
One may be astonished and even scandalized at the frequency, in religious climates, of more or less unintelligent opinions and attitudes, let it be said without euphemism; the indirect cause of this phenomenon is that religion, the goal of which is to save the largest possible number of souls and not to satisfy the need for causal explanations of an intellectual elite, has no motive for directly addressing the intelligence as such. In keeping with its end and with the capacity of the majority, the religious message is basically addressed to intuition, sentiment, and imagination, and then to the will, and to reason to the extent that the human condition requires it; it informs men of the reality of God, of the immortality of the soul and of their ensuing consequences for man, and it offers man the means of saving himself. It is not, does not wish to be, and cannot be, or offer, anything else, at least not explicitly; for implicitly it offers everything.
Frithjof Schuon
Socrates said that manual laborers make bad friends and bad citizens because they have no time to fulfill the responsibilities of friendship and citizenship. He was right. Because of work, no matter what we do we keep looking at our watches. The only thing "free" about so-called free time is that it doesn't cost the boss anything. Free time is mostly devoted to getting ready for work, going to work, returning from work, and recovering from work. Free time is a euphemism for the peculiar way labor as a factor of production not only transports itself at its own expense to and from the workplace but assumes primary responsibility for its own maintenance and repair. Coal and steel don't do that. Lathes and typewriters don't do that. But workers do.
Bob Black
