# Disgusting euphemisms **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 5, 2004, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682 "2004-03-05T11:41:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/101 "2004-03-11T16:12:08Z")
> [@inkleberry](#): > > Hymenlly-endowed. > Nonpartnered sexual. Masturbator. Onanist. Oh, and because I have full function of all my limbs, you can call me “temporarily abled.” ('Coz you never know what might happen …) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/102 "2004-03-11T16:25:59Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Dammit. There IS nothing wrong with black. Who is telling you there is? Like I’ve said before, the mainstream media accepts “black” as the standard description of someone with dark skin. It’s not offensive, and I’ve personally never heard anyone claim it is. Using ‘black’ as an _adjective_ is fine - it’s using it as a _noun_ that can cause offence. We talk about ‘fat people’ or ‘tall people’, not ‘fats and talls’. There’s no reason to talk about ‘blacks’. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/103 "2004-03-11T16:27:29Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Dammit. There IS nothing wrong with black. Who is telling you there is? Like I’ve said before, the mainstream media accepts “black” as the standard description of someone with dark skin. It’s not offensive, and I’ve personally never heard anyone claim it is. \ A white friend married a black woman. We live in PA and her folks live in LA. Another friend and I flew to LA to be in the wedding. We were, accepting the groom and his brothers, the only two white folk there. We were telling a story relating to being the only two white men at a black wedding and the Bride said “Excuse me?” We were confused. “We prefer African American thank you very much.” Sure, this is only one incidense, but I know that I have been told it is, not just this time, but by others as well. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/104 "2004-03-11T17:27:49Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Using ‘black’ as an _adjective_ is fine - it’s using it as a _noun_ that can cause offence. We talk about ‘fat people’ or ‘tall people’, not ‘fats and talls’. There’s no reason to talk about ‘blacks’. Well, I guess I’ve never used it in this sense, so perhaps that’s why I’ve never gotten in trouble for it. For whatever reason “blacks” seems to carry a certain negative connotation that “black people” doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![cuauhtemoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/105 "2004-03-11T18:45:11Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Using ‘black’ as an _adjective_ is fine - it’s using it as a _noun_ that can cause offence. We talk about ‘fat people’ or ‘tall people’, not ‘fats and talls’. There’s no reason to talk about ‘blacks’. This seems arbitrary. Suppose I insist that the term “black people” is offensive, and the only acceptable term is “people who are black”? Should I expect to be taken seriously? I hope you’d tell me to go fuck myself. ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/106 "2004-03-11T19:41:07Z")
> [@cuauhtemoc](#): > > This seems arbitrary. Suppose I insist that the term “black people” is offensive, and the only acceptable term is “people who are black”? Should I expect to be taken seriously? I hope you’d tell me to go fuck myself. Obviously you have not heard of “people-first” terminology. Yep, instead of, say, retarded people you have “people with mental retardation.” Like that’s really going to make the assholes who stare and make rude comments stop and think twice about the peopleness of those they are staring at and making rude comments about. Riiiiiiiiiight. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2004, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/107 "2004-03-12T01:57:49Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > A white friend married a black woman. We live in PA and her folks live in LA. Another friend and I flew to LA to be in the wedding. We were, accepting the groom and his brothers, the only two white folk there. We were telling a story relating to being the only two white men at a black wedding and the Bride said “Excuse me?” We were confused. “We prefer African American thank you very much.” Sure, this is only one incidense, but I know that I have been told it is, not just this time, but by others as well. Well, it does suggest an unfortunate comparison with “white wedding” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/108 "2004-03-18T08:28:43Z")
With “Native American” aren’t you just quibbling over time? If someone who’s ancestors came here (by here I mean America, since that’s where I am, no offense to anyone else, that wouldn’t be PC!) by boat from Europe 150 years ago isn’t “Native”, then why should someone who’s ancestors came over a landbridge from Asia centuries and centuries eariler be “Native”? Everybody’s got immigrants in their ancestry, you just have to go back far enough. Frankly, I think it’s best to use the name of the tribe (if you know it) or Indian (or since you have to differentiate from people from India, American Indian.) Though I must admit, at one point I got so sick of having “Native American” shoved down society’s collective throat, I took to calling them “Native Indians” out of protest. (And yes, I realize that would technically be someone from India, that was the point, being even more absurd than the PC crowd.) ---
**Author:** ![RussellM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed8c4c/32.png) [@RussellM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RussellM)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/109 "2004-03-18T14:09:31Z")
I think you’re missing the point here \*\*Punoqllads \*\* > [@](#): > > The idea of calling folk African-Americans does have a point to it. It’s to emphasize that there is a cultural distinction to them, beyond the color of their skin. Compare it to Italian-American, Jewish-American, or Mexican-American. Nelson Mandella is not American and does not live in America - but is often described as African-American. He is also not African-Spanish or African-Norwegian Surely the one common feature of anyone described as X-American, is that they should, at the very least, be living in America and consider themselves to be American? ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/110 "2004-03-18T16:20:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Surely the one common feature of anyone described as X-American, is that they should, at the very least, be living in America and consider themselves to be American? Very sensible. I know quite a few black people who are neither African nor American. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/111 "2004-03-18T17:28:58Z")
Can anybody provide an actual example of Mandela being described as African-American? I can find plenty of websites which identify him as an important figure _in African-American history_, which is something different. ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/112 "2004-03-18T17:29:15Z")
Red, brown, yellow, black or white: We’re all pink on the inside. And isn’t that what really counts? ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/113 "2004-03-18T19:51:42Z")
On death: I can handle most of the euphemisms; the one I just can’t take is ‘lost’. \*‘I heard you lost your mother last year.’ ‘No, that was my car keys, Mom’s in the grave, right next to Dad.’ \* Maybe I wouldn’t be so sensitive if I didn’t lose my keys so often … Reading the debate about ‘black’, ‘black people’ and ‘people who are black’, I realized that I never use any of them. I use ‘black’ only as an adjective to describe some-one (‘The man over there … no, the tall one … he has on the red tie … the black guy.’) If for some reason I am talking about a specific sub-group of Americans, usually there is a cultural component, so I use African-American. I would like to add that I would prefer people used European-American to ‘Anglo’. I move we act to take that perfectly nice term back from the racialist, or the racist. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/114 "2004-03-18T22:11:31Z")
> [@j66](#): > > On death: > I can handle most of the euphemisms; the one I just can’t take is ‘lost’. > > \*‘I heard you lost your mother last year.’ > > ‘No, that was my car keys, Mom’s in the grave, right next to Dad.’ > \* > Maybe I wouldn’t be so sensitive if I didn’t lose my keys so often … Another one for dying that I’ve heard quite a bit recently… “I buried my mother last week.” Uh, did you actually dig the grave? Were you out there with a shovel? No? Then you didn’t “bury” her. You may have arranged her funeral services, but you didn’t bury her; that was the guy at the cemetary with the backhoe. Sorry if that sounds insensitive, but I keep hearing people say this, and it annoys me. It ranks right up there with men saying, “We’re pregnant.” No, I’m sorry, just _your wife_ is pregnant. You’re expecting a baby with her, but unless you’ve had some revolutionary medical procedure, you’re not the one who is **pregnant** , okay? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/115 "2004-03-18T22:50:40Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Can anybody provide an actual example of Mandela being described as African-American? I can find plenty of websites which identify him as an important figure _in African-American history_, which is something different. Yeah, I keep hearing this claim too. That he’s “often” described as African-American? Where? By whom? A bunch of brainless inbreds who don’t know their heads from their asses? I’m sure there’s some idiot some where out there in the net who has said this, but that hardly qualifies as often. Usually, people describe him as South African or African. ---
**Author:** ![LVgeogeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b19c9b/32.png) [@LVgeogeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVgeogeek)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/116 "2004-03-19T00:51:20Z")
I personally dislike the whole PC, soft language, euphimisms that try to make people feel better about themselves. I call them as I see them. As a Jew I really dislike “Jewish American”… people do not refer to themselves as a Catholic American or a Prodistant American or even an Athiest American… it just sounds silly. Plus a religeon does not necessiarily indicate a country of “origin” or a race of people (think Hitler here) religeon is not the same thing as race. Then again I am not one for be a separatist or whatever. I think there would be less problems perhaps if we Americans just called ourselves Americans. No more of this breakdown-every-aspect-of-your-background-to-feel-special. Just remember you are unique, just like everyone else 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2004, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/117 "2004-03-19T02:01:45Z")
> [@Apricot](#): > > Personally, I’m indian, Cherokee, or american indian. The “Native American” pushers forgot to ask the indians what they thought. It’s not right to change a people’s name to something YOU don’t find offensive. That’s as offensive as making the term in the first place. White people don’t get to decide that anymore. I read an article a few years back about offensive sports team nicknames. Specifically the Washington Redskins, but the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves were also mentioned. The article listed statistics supposedly showing that the vast majority of American Indians had no problem with the team names. I’m not looking for the end-all be-all answer here, but I’m just curious: do you personally find those names offensive? ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/118 "2004-03-20T02:58:54Z")
I never knew that Native American bothered people. I personally use that one because it’s less confusing than Indian, but also it serves as a reminder that they were here first and it should be remembered what we did to them. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2004, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/119 "2004-03-20T05:20:59Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#): > > I read an article a few years back about offensive sports team nicknames. Specifically the Washington Redskins, but the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves were also mentioned. The article listed statistics supposedly showing that the vast majority of American Indians had no problem with the team names. > > I’m not looking for the end-all be-all answer here, but I’m just curious: do you personally find those names offensive? Yeah, this was a big deal at the University of Illinois, with its Fighting Illini. Actually, I think it had more to do with the mascot than the name of the team. I am not a sportsy person, but I want to say the mascot is Chief Redskin, or something like that. And IIRC, the mascot IS a caricature - big headdress, big nose, tomahawk, etc. I’m an Italian-Spanish-Swedish-German-French-American :rolleyes: What I find entertaining about that is that when people meet me, their first question is almost ALWAYS, “Are you Asian?” ---
**Author:** ![Apricot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bcef8e/32.png) [@Apricot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apricot)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682/120 "2004-03-22T04:10:34Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#): > > I read an article a few years back about offensive sports team nicknames. Specifically the Washington Redskins, but the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves were also mentioned. The article listed statistics supposedly showing that the vast majority of American Indians had no problem with the team names. > > I’m not looking for the end-all be-all answer here, but I’m just curious: do you personally find those names offensive? Personally, I do not find them offensive. Being over the top is an american trait, and I put the team names into that spirit. But a lot of people do find them offensive. I think it often depends on the context, respect or funning. I support other people with personal knowledge who want to change them. It’s similar to the fact that I’ll never understand what it is like to live in an area with de-facto segregation, like that still exisiting in some southern states. If people who live it say it is discrimation, I believe them. It doesn’t matter what I think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disgusting-euphemisms/232682.md?page=5)