# Lame, face-saving euphemisms **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 24, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275 "2010-02-24T17:35:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/41 "2010-02-25T18:36:04Z")
Not exactly face saving, but when did “employee” become a bad word, most notably in retail? I always cringe when I hear stupid terms like “team member.” Is it supposed to make employees feel better about their crappy jobs?\* Back when I was running a restaurant, my boss (the owner) hired a woman to be a district-manager-type, and she tried to get me to participate in this “team member” nonsense. I just laughed at her. Along those lines, why the dumb fancy titles for less-than-prestigious positions? “Cleaning Technician?” Oh, you mean _Janitor_? \*No offense is intended here. I’ve worked more than my fair share of such jobs. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/42 "2010-02-25T18:38:28Z")
I think it’s universally agreed that Subway’s “Sandwich Artists” is the most egregious example of that phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/43 "2010-02-25T18:40:49Z")
“Differently abled”. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/44 "2010-02-25T18:45:29Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > The oddest Jeopardy intro I’ve heard was “gadabout.” Apparently, they used this instead of his preference of “bon vivant.” Wonder why. Trebek normally lives for those precious opportunities to overpronounce French words. ---
**Author:** ![maladroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f475e1/32.png) [@maladroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maladroit)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/45 "2010-02-25T18:51:23Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > I think it’s universally agreed that Subway’s “Sandwich Artists” is the most egregious example of that phenomenon. I’ve not heard that one before, that’s funny! ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/46 "2010-02-25T19:09:14Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Wonder why. Trebek normally lives for those precious opportunities to overpronounce French words. Well, Johnny introduces the contestants, not Alex. Otherwise, all bets are off. > [@maladroit](#): > > I’ve not heard that one before, that’s funny! Just beware of getting the Jackson Pollock of sandwich artists. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/47 "2010-02-25T19:33:26Z")
I made some errors in judgment. No shit. ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/48 "2010-02-25T20:12:29Z")
> [@GESancMan](#): > > Not exactly face saving, but when did “employee” become a bad word, most notably in retail? I always cringe when I hear stupid terms like “team member.” Is it supposed to make employees feel better about their crappy jobs?\* Back when I was running a restaurant, my boss (the owner) hired a woman to be a district-manager-type, and she tried to get me to participate in this “team member” nonsense. I just laughed at her. In the 90’s, I was working at a library, and we had a door to a back room there labeled “Staff Only”. One of my fellow employees taped up a card that said “Team Members” over the word “Staff” as a joke because he had seen it at Target. Now, if we had been working at a “for-profit” enterprise, they not only wouldn’t have made us take it down, they’d have installed a new permanent sign! I used to be a shipping clerk, but now I’m a “Material Coordinator”. Granted, after the new software got put in and they determined that I would no longer actually ship things (I find the things that need to be shipped and send them to the people who actually ship things now) they had to call me something else, but if someone asks me what I do, I still say shipping clerk because people know what that is. WTF is a Material Coordinator? Sounds like I work in the fashion industry! ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/49 "2010-02-25T20:16:27Z")
The unit of biological contamination by radioactive substances now called the strontium unit used to be called “sunshine units”. Gee, doesn’t that just give you a warm glow (as you die from radiation poisoning). ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/50 "2010-02-25T20:31:25Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Wow! Down-sizing is chicken-shit enough. Leave it to the outfits where Advertising is Job One. My company recently stripped one of its floors of full size 6x6 foot cubicles into half-height 4X5 cubucles. It’s horrible. In that part of the building morale has sunk to new levels. People feel like Pavlov’s rats. Anyway, when asked why they were trying to cram so many people into the building they said something about “Maximizing employee density!” ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/51 "2010-02-25T20:48:29Z")
> [@uncle\_squeegee](#): > > At one point, layoffs at my company were referred to as “rightsizing.” The geniuses who came up with that deserved to be engaged in a little impromptu physical outletting. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotGrrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/52 "2010-02-25T20:59:12Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I just came across this one in today’s news. A former Blackwater security contractor is accused of shooting an Afghan civilian. This particular man was “discharged from the Army after going AWOL and testing positive for cocaine,” according to press reports. > > On a website that has been set up for his legal defense fund, it reads, “He was among those at the “tip of the spear” when U.S. forces liberated Iraq in early 2003. **After his term of service ended,** [name] accepted a position in Afghanistan with Paravant (formerly Blackwater) as a weapons instructor for the Afghan National Army.” > > Wow. Do you mean that “after his term of service ended” is a euphemism for “after he was was discharged from the army”? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/53 "2010-02-25T21:41:03Z")
Yes, I think it’s a very delicate way to obfuscate the whole AWOL and cocaine thing. Sort of like saying that Tony Montana had “a brush with the law” in the movie Scarface. It isn’t a lie, it’s a face-saving way of avoiding the gravity of the events described. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/54 "2010-02-25T22:40:46Z")
> [@GESancMan](#): > > Not exactly face saving, but when did “employee” become a bad word, most notably in retail? I always cringe when I hear stupid terms like “team member.” Is it supposed to make employees feel better about their crappy jobs?\* Back when I was running a restaurant, my boss (the owner) hired a woman to be a district-manager-type, and she tried to get me to participate in this “team member” nonsense. I just laughed at her. > > Along those lines, why the dumb fancy titles for less-than-prestigious positions? “Cleaning Technician?” Oh, you mean _Janitor_? > > \*No offense is intended here. I’ve worked more than my fair share of such jobs. I once worked for a company that tried to shoe-horn the word Analyst into every title. I wasn’t an Administrative Assistant, I was an Administrative Analyst! Hoo boy! I’d rather have gone back to Secretary. It didn’t last long, but we all got some laughs at it while it endured. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/55 "2010-02-25T23:05:59Z")
Because some early Xerox photocopy machines had a tendency to jam and catch fire, they came equipped with what looked to most people like a fire extinguisher, but was in reality a “scorch eliminator”. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/56 "2010-02-26T00:42:40Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > My company recently stripped one of its floors of full size 6x6 foot cubicles into half-height 4X5 cubucles. It’s horrible. In that part of the building morale has sunk to new levels. People feel like Pavlov’s rats. Anyway, when asked why they were trying to cram so many people into the building they said something about “Maximizing employee density!” I wish I could have found the strip online, but here’s the text from the Dilbert comic strip of Jan 7, 1996: **Dilbert** : _Why do I have a feeling of impending doom?_ **Pointy-haired boss** : - “Good news!” **Dilbert** : _Uh-oh._ **Pointy-haired boss** : - “You won’t have to spend another lonely day in this tiny cubicle.” **Dilbert** : - “I’m getting an office?” **Pointy-haired boss** : “Better! You’re getting a roommate!” **Dilbert** : - “Why!!! We’ve got plenty of empty cubicles! Our company owns the whole building!” **Pointy-haired boss** : - “The finance department charges my budget for the square footage we use.” **Dilbert** : - “It’s a false savings! You’re hurting the company!” **Pointy-haired boss** : _All I hear is a faint buzzing._ **Dilbert** : - _Oh well. How bad could it be?_ **New cubicle mate** : “I hope you like baked beans and square-dancing as much as I do” ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/57 "2010-02-26T01:23:14Z")
The press are full of these euphemisms. “Tired and emotional” for the all celebrities who got drunker than 10,000 men at awards dinners and made utter fools of themselves. In Oz, “prominent Sydney businessman and colourful racing identity” equalled crook. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/58 "2010-02-26T19:29:04Z")
Ooh yes, “tired and emotional is good”. 🙂 I think of it as a _Private Eye_ phrase, but perhaps it has travelled everywhere by now. Similar to the prominent Sydney businessman, if a newspaper here refers to an “East End businessman”, it is usually taken as suggesting “crook, but he can afford lawyers and we don’t want trouble.” Another one is “health reasons”. This or that local councillor resigns for “health reasons”, but somehow neglects to to mention the strange and dubious workings of his financial dealings and expenses claims. Of course, it now strikes me that the absolute number one “health reasons” claim must surely be that of Ernest Saunders and his “Alzheimer’s Disease”, from which, once out of prison with his sentence massively reduced, he somehow recovered. A first for medical science! Yeah, right. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/59 "2010-02-26T19:48:57Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > …“Tired and emotional” for the all celebrities who got drunker than 10,000 men at awards dinners and made utter fools of themselves… Why am I not surprised that Wiki actually has a page for that phrase?: [Tired and emotional - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_and_emotional) As for Tony Montana’s (and others’) understated “brushes with the law,” consider: [Did Joe Biden Have a Horse Thief Ancestor? | Snopes.com](http://www.snopes.com/politics/humor/horsethief.asp) ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275/60 "2010-02-26T20:01:23Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > “Tired and emotional” for the all celebrities who got drunker than 10,000 men at awards dinners and made utter fools of themselves. There’s always “suffering from exhaustion”, which seems to be a euphemism for a whole lot of problems that celebrities have. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lame-face-saving-euphemisms/530275.md?page=4)