Euphemisms I hate

The BBQ Pit
1

Euphemisms are a way of making something tolerable by giving it a name that masks what it IS.

  1. Obese =/= “curvy”

I realize that these days, 10 is considered a plus size, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Sizes and bodies at the higher end of “normal” – yeah, these can be curvy, which to me means a defined, discernable bust, waist, and hips. Sizes 14, 16, even 18, can be curvy IMHO.

But a woman who is 5’6" tall, 300 lbs, and a size 24 is not “curvy.” There is no clothing or style that can hide the fact that this woman is morbidly obese. Recent episodes of What Not to Wear have employed this euphemism in the interest of bolstering the participant’s self-esteem. “Look at those great curves!" one of the hosts will gush, when what we’re looking at are rolls of good, old fashioned FAT.

I’m not saying fat women are bad, weak, morally lax, or anything like that. They can be brilliant, talented, hard-working saints. But they are…well, fat, not curvy.

  1. Killing

First, the hunting euphemisms: harvesting, taking, culling, thinning. It’s killing, so let’s just call it that. Lots of people do it. My late husband was a competent, enthusiastic, responsible hunter, and I’m not anti-hunting. If you have the balls and the stomach to gut a warm, bleeding animal whose life you just took for sport, not necessity, then at least have the balls and the stomach to use the Real Word to describe the act.

Second, years ago the term “ethnic cleansing” came to be used in news reports as a substitute for what it really is: murder and genocide. News organizations pride themselves on being hard-hitting and brutally honest. So don’t stoop to using the terms that the murderers have invented to make their crimes easy to talk about in public. Call things by their real names.
I’ve never even visited this forum before, let alone posted here. Very cool.

Anyone else have euphemisms you hate? Or maybe you hate mine?

2

“Sleep with” =/= “have sex with”.

Big difference in those two activities.

3

I remember my college English teacher, and what he said about this. We were analyzing a poem. A student in the class said something about someone ‘‘sleeping with’’ someone else. The teacher said ‘’ ‘Sleeping with?’ Let’s not use euphemisms. Who’s fucking who?‘’ :wink:

4

Just wanted to echo your sentiments that obese =/= curvy. Someone recently started a thread in another forum (IMHO, I think?) asking for advice on where to buy classy clothes for a curvy figure. Turns out the woman was big.

If a woman said she was having trouble finding clothes because she was so curvy, I would assume she’s either (a) having trouble finding tops that fit properly in the shoulders, chest, and stomach; or (b) having trouble finding bottoms that fit properly in the butt, hips, and waist. A curvy woman will often find that shirts that fit properly in the bust billow around the stomach, or ones that fit well in the hips are too big around the waist.

If you’re having trouble finding classy plus-size clothes, that’s an entirely different problem.

The fact is, and I’ll try not to say this callously, but the reason that curvy is a more flattering word than words such as obese, fat, plus-sized, big, etc. is because it IS more flattering. And the reason it is more flattering is because it is NOT synonymous with being overweight. I’m all for wording things kindly as long as it’s still being honest. But when you begin to confuse the actual meanings of word to suit your self-image, that’s where it gets to be uncool.

5

The term “ethnic cleansing” has a meaning more specific than “murder” or even “genocide.” It means, specifically, to drive one or more ethnicities from a geographical area (usually, and largely, by forced deportation, not complete murder, a la genocide.) It is not, therefore, a euphemism; it was coined to describe a specific type of crime. Calling ethnic cleansing a “euphemism” is like calling “The Holocaust” a “euphemism.”

For my part, the euphemism I dislike most is the newish term “passed” for “died.” For awhile the thing to say was “passed away,” but at some point 15-20 years ago, I think, people started saying just “passed,” e.g. “Grandma passed last night” or “Ah, Uncle Dave is passed now.” I make a point of never using the terms “passed” or “passed away,” in part to ensure my daughter is correctly taught to deal with death and funerals and whatnot. The terms “die,” “died” and “dead” are perfectly good ones and there is no need to use any other.

6

I have no problems with curvy, voluptuous, a little extra or any of the other options for body type on OKC. No one’s fooled by it and if it makes someone feel better to think that everyone agrees it’s just an ungainly extra 5 pounds, I don’t care. Speaking truth to power in this instance strikes me more as wanting a socially acceptable reason to be rude.

I’m with you on passed/passed away though.

7

Culling has a specific meaning - it’s a kind of killing with a definite goal, not a PC coverup and not just a euphemism for hunting. Let’s not thin down the language too much just to be reactionary.

8

I think you mean kill the language. :wink:

9

I accept your qualification, that ethnic cleansing is something specific. It’s just that the term itself is too civilized to adequately describe the reality. I want a term that doesn’t give the perpetrators a pass. Usually “cleansing” is something good and desirable. I want a term, not coined by the doers, that conveys the cruelty, horror, destruction, injustice, and evil of this process.

This euphemism is particularly problematic on dating sites.

Again, I’m not taking about 5 pounds, 25 pounds, or even 50 pounds. I’m talking about someone who is clearly at least 100 pounds over her healthy weight.

I’m not advocating name-calling, just accurate reporting. Possibly the most important time/place for accuracy is when she is looking at herself in the mirror. Difficult to admit that you now weigh 100 pounds more than the day you graduated from high school, but if that is really, she’s not doing herself a favor by calling it something it isn’t.

I just thought of another one: all the euphemisms for DRUNK. There are too many to list. And yes, I’m fond of the buzz I get after a couple of margaritas. But I lived with and slept with (in all senses of the word) a drunk, and it was disgusting. The smell, the slurred words, the inability to complete the act of sleeping with. There’s nothing cute or attractive about being falling down drunk. Yet we have many cute names for it and a reluctance to name it. One of the things that makes intervention effective (when it is, which is not always) is the naming of what it is.

10

I think maybe I hate ALL euphemisms. I don’t have trouble understanding them or anything like that, but they seem to be employed to keep people from having to confront unpleasant truths. I like to state things as directly as possible and hide from unpleasant truths by more effective means.
Can I still “harvest” my carrots though, or do I have to say I’m killing them?

11

This curvy thing drives me crazy.

I’m 5’7" and weight 150-155 pounds. I wear a size 10 and I’m reasonably well proportioned with a narrow waist. I consider my body type “curvy”.

But I’ve been told that I’m slender…well “internet” slender, that is. I’m like…“no, 25 pounds ago I was slender but not anymore, now I’m curvy”. Then the response will be “you’re not fat” and I reply “I never said I was”.

I buy most of my clothes on-line. About 2 weeks after I went from a size 8 to a 10 I began getting Plus-size catalogs in the mail, lots and lots of them…So the Internet definitely thinks I’m “internet” curvy…fat.

12

my heart weeps for u

13

It used to be that the US had a Department of War which sometimes caused Civilian Casualties. Now we have a Department of Defense that causes Collateral Damage. In fact there has been a whole new glossary developed to try and make the killing of other people of political purposes sound far more agreeable. In fact the whole language of war has changed. You don’t kill the enemy, you neutralize them. You don’t bombard targets, you soften them up. You don’t hire mercenaries, you hire military contractors. Religious civil wars become sectarian violence. And so on and so forth.

14

Genocie VS ethnic cleansing: I think there needs to be a distinction in international law between “seal the border and kill them all” and “push them over the border, kill them if they don’t go.” Both criminal, but not the same aggravating factors.

In 1938-45 the Germans sealed the Jews in and killed them; in 1905-09 they pushed the Hereros out - but out into the desert where they were fully expected die; so both count as genocide. What the Americans did to the Indians and the British to the Boers was ethnic cleansing; most of the deaths due to indifferent administration.

“Pass” VS “die:” sometimes it is OK to use a euphemism to spare someone’s feelings. A hospice volunteer’s duty is to help the patient die in peace, and would say to him or her “I put in your tulip bulbs for Spring. If you pass before they bloom please don’t worry - I’ll still take care of them.”

But you wouldn’t say “A helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan yesterday: 8 soldiers passed.”

15

Grampa, where do we go when we die?

The ground.

16

Speaking of soldiers, I’d like to see the phrase “gave his/her/their life” stricken from the English language. Soldiers (not to mention cops, firefighters, rescue personnel, etc) don’t “give their lives.” They are killed. They fucking die. They don’t hand up their life-force on bended knee as an offering to Jehovah, Allah, Cthulhu, or the Flying Spaghetti monster. They get shot, blown up, run over, stabbed, and otherwise meet bloody, undignified deaths. Their lives are taken, not given.

Same thing for “the ultimate sacrifice.” A sacrifice is a ritualized killing intended to facilitate a specific goal. The thing that is sacrificed is selected for its role. Soldiers, cops, firefighters, etc. are not carefully chosen to die in a choreographed spectacle or a field of glory. They aren’t Mesoamerican warrior-prisoners, groomed and feted for a year before being led out to be killed by the king in front of a crowd of onlookers in order to ensure the fertility of the land and the power of the monarch.

Perhaps if we stopped glorifying death with euphemisms, we’d be less keen on sending people off to experience it on our behalf.

17

So you don’t use “sacrifice” in any other context? E.g. to you, your mother never made any sacrifices for you, because she never cut out the heart of the neighbor kid on an altar to cure your mild fever?

18

u poor dear

19

This is accurate for conscripts and noncombatants killed by warfare. Volunteer soldiers have, at least, knowingly given themselves over to the risk of being killed.

20

While we’re at it can we ban the news-use of “troops”? Six troops didn’t die today - perhaps it was a soldier, a sailor, and four Marines? A troop is a bunch of guys.