Euphemisms

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Do euphemisms really make people feel any better about themselves? Example: I used to be "color blind", now I "suffer from a color perception deficiency". ?????. Remeber when the guy who picked up your garbage was called the garbageman? Now he (or she) is a "sanitation engineer". Yeah, right. Employees in department stores are "associates" or "partners". I know a LOT of these types of jobs suck, I've had a few, but why give them fancy names? This whole PC thing has gotten WAY out of hand.

Comments? Bashings?

[Boris B]

Some of these new job titles are supposed to go along with changes in management philosophy. I think "sales accociates" are supposed to have power to manage their own time, and not supposed to get a fixed salary, but rather, to be on commission. That way, they are partners of the business, not just the peons at the sales end of the totem pole. The downside is that if they make few sales, they have trouble paying the bills. Whether or not they are really treated like partners, I don't know.

Certainly people don't treat garbage men like engineers ... people will actually talk to garbage men. Joke! Some of my best friends are engineers.

I do think "title creep" is a bad thing, mainly because it causes confusion. If a garbage man is a "sanitation engineer", then what do you call the person who slaves over the blueprints of the sewage system with a protractor and those neat pencils? A "sewage man"?

I guess now all the trolls are messageboard challenged!Or anti-inti(lectuals) :)

It isn't just a recent phenomenon, though. In 1971 I was pumping gas at a station in Louisville. Was I a 'pump jockey'? Nawwww, I was a driveway salesman.

Yeah, like I sold driveways all day?

[Satan]

When spending a weekend on the road with a band (Sepulture, for those keeping score at home), I spent one night getting drunk with Nino, the guy who did the band's live sound.

He complained, as only a drunken roadie could, that he hated being called "sound dude." I suggested "Audio Technician."

He loved it and last I heard still uses the appellation.

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Yer pal,
Satan

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

At one time, "Human Resources" was called "Personnel."

In a lot of places now, "Highway Patrol" is given the benevolent moniker of "Public Safety." Guess that sounds a little more palatable that "Predatory Revenue Enhancers."

[DSYoungEsq]

At one time, my AOL profile stated I was a "dispute resolution faciltator." It sure beats hearing attorney jokes... ;)

[Boris B]

What do you call 10,000 dispute resolution factilitators at -

Sorry. I almost couldn't stop there for a second.

[tracer]

Boris B wrote:

If a garbage man is a "sanitation engineer", then what do you call the person who slaves over the blueprints of the sewage system with a protractor and those neat pencils?

I call him a dinosaur who ought to learn how to use a CAD program, fer chrissakes.

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The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.

[Dragwyr]

This actually was my title when I worked in a freezer warehouse, filling icecream orders for the local supermarket chain:

"Frozen dairy product selection specialist"

I laughed my ass off.

My favorite is "pre-owned cars."

Do used-car salesmen really think people are that stupid?

[tracer]

On one episode of The Flintstones, Fred got a job as an apartment building's live-in janitor.

Except they called the position "Resident stationary engineer."

[Polycarp]

I thought they now referred to secretaries as "stationery engineers."

[Occam]

I'm a bartender and I've heard the more dedicated ones call themselves 'mixologists'...no kidding.

[Atrael]

How about "administrative assistant" instead of "secretary"...this one always annoyed me for some reason.

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I haven't lost my mind, I have a tape backup around somewhere.

[GLWasteful]

Occam: The only folk I ever encountered who used the term, "mixologist" to describe themselves, were inevitably the ones who went to that damned bartending "college".

Buncha pains in the ass who always short-poured, grrr.

Waste
Flick Lives!

[Polycarp]

Atrael...read my profile.

The jobs are (supposed to be) different... I may do secretarial duties for the consultants I'm supposed to assist, or do research, draft portions of their reports, etc. The whole idea is to maximize the use of their time and expertise by having someone who understands what they're doing handling the things he/she can, freeing the lead guy on the project up to do the things only he/she can do.

Now, granted, there are people who chew gum, file nails and letters, and generally don't do significant work that have gotten the title through creeping euphemism. But that doesn't mean that there aren't real generalists like me out there trying to justify it.

Same deal as with physical therapists. There are people who are devoted specialists in rehabilitation with postgraduate training who spend their lives trying to help people who need it get their bodies functioning again after accidents. And there are clowns who have taken one course in massage that call themselves by the same term.

Probably a dozen other examples where the guy/girl who is really trying to do a good job is ambushed by the fakers claiming the same name.

[tracer]

Bitter, Polycarp? :)

[J String]

The MADD Victim's Impact Panel met in our conference room last night. For those of you who aren't familiar, people who get DWIs pay to go to these lectures. Anyway, most people who come in looking for the meeting ask for it by the name I gave above. A few, however, ask where the "night class" is. They think I won't know what they're really here for.

[AWB]

I recall an episode of one of Lucille Ball's shows where she and her family drive to the USAF Academy and she tries to get her son an appointment there.

She runs into the head of the Academy, whose title is "superintendent". She dismissed him, thinking of "superintendent"'s other connotation of "janitor".

[handy]

Since I started to think of kids as 'age impaired' they seem easier to deal with.

[occ]

Ha, "pre-owned cars". If you notice, its typically only pretentious luxury cars that use this moniker, the same cars that insist on using a faux-British announcer.

[PurpleCrackwhore]

I was honored when my daughter proclaimed to me that I was no longer her mother but her birth unit... so much so that I dubbed her my birth entity.

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"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing, does the painter do good
things." --Edgar Degas

[WhiteRaven]

Originally posted by tracer
Boris B wrote:

If a garbage man is a "sanitation engineer", then what do you call the person who slaves over the blueprints of the sewage system with a protractor and those neat pencils?

I call him a dinosaur who ought to learn how to use a CAD program, fer chrissakes.

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The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.


LoL

[Peloquin]

Good God, man! This thingyou have created...it is an abomination of life! Plundering the graves of long-dead threads to fuel your own sick desire to play God! I will have nothing to do with it!

*runs from the lab, screaming*

[lee]

Not too long ago there were Real Estate Men and Undertakers. Now we have Realtors and Morticians. I do like changes that make job titles gender neutral, such as police officer instead of policeman. I have know administrative assistants that get promoted to other types of jobs, but never a secretary that did so. In the bank where I used to work, no one had a secretary. The president of the bank typed up and printed and mailed his own letters. He did not have an a a or a secretary. However, many people in the bank did have administrative assistants. These people were not to be used simply to do clerical work, but to do research and other tasks that related to their supervisor's job. These a a's often did get promoted.

Sometimes euphamisms are used to avoid words that have become slurs or at least have negative associations. Some would say black is a euphamism for Negro. Disabled is a euphamism for crippled. I certainly prefer disabled to be used.

There are euphamisms that are just silly, handi-capable strikes me as one of these.

[matt_mcl]

Personally, I prefer cacophemisms.

I didn't work as an editorial assistant!

I was the office drudge.

Or the whipping intern.

Or the coffee boy.

(Entertainment unit?)

[tomndebb]

Not too long ago there were Real Estate Men and Undertakers.
Realtor dates to around 1920.

Mortician goes all the way back to 1895.

While the impetus for PC language is similar to the impetus for euphemisms, in general, and they both look like job title inflation, they are different phenomena.

Euphemisms tend to be "natural." People shy away from death, so their loved ones "pass away."
Job title inflation tends to be either ego-stroking or vanity (depending on whether one is applying the new term to en employee or to oneself).
PC is an attempt to avoid offending other people. When it results in using "disabled" in place of "gimps" it probably has a purpose. (On the other hand, I would see that as simple politeness.) When it results in refering to a paraplegic as "differently abled" it is generally silly.

"Sales Associate" is not PC; it is an attempt to pretend that a sales clerk is more interested in a pretty title than in an actual livable salary.

One can smirk at both PC and job title inflation, but one should note that they have different motivations and desrve to be laughed at for different reasons.

[Cat Whisperer]

I learned this weekend that corpses in a funeral home are referred to as "guests". Hmmm.
I also refer to temps (including myself) as "disposable employees". I have a lot of fun with PC-speak - maybe that's why I'm a quiet person - self-preservation :D

[dave99]

Originally posted by Flora McFlimsey
My favorite is "pre-owned cars."

Do used-car salesmen really think people are that stupid?

Please, don't be so gauche. Used cars are now referred to as "Previously Cherished". ;)

[El_Kabong]

When I used to work in the oil patch, the company I worked for tried mightily to promote our personnel to clients as "Hydrocarbon Data Engineers", but everyone on the rig just continued to call us "Mud Loggers" anyway.

That said, I find it much more pleasant to be "between jobs" than "unemployed".

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

This must have come from the time when underwear was Unmentionable, as an A&E documentary on the subject was entitled. Presumably people were uncomfortable saying underwear as it connoted a tight or flimsy (i.e. boxers) intimate garment.

So they called them shorts...this one always makes me laugh because I get this mental image of people wearing normal street shorts under their jeans or trousers.

[tracer]

tomndebb wrote:

Not too long ago there were Real Estate Men and Undertakers.
Realtor dates to around 1920.
It's also a registered trade mark.

Anybody can call himself a "real estate man," but you can only call yourself a "Realtor" if you have one of those pretty certificates from the National Association of Realtors.

[TheeGrumpy]

Maybe a little OT -- then again, it's the T's fault for being so narrowly focused...

Remember the days before "faith-based institution" became a euphemism for "church"? It was, like, 1999 or so.

Honestly, isn't "euphemism" just a euphemism for not saying what you really mean?

--Grump "three-ring circumlocution" y