Writing an online blog, if you know what I mean
I've been thinking a lot about euphemisms lately. I'm generally pro-euphemism — at least the clever ones.
But, when advertisers, public officials and the military start using them to hide the truth because they think whomever they're talking to is too stupid or isn't ready to handle the real words, they can be condescending, dishonest and even dangerous.
The euphemism stuff started about a week ago when my wife, Stacy, and I were doing some work in the backyard around the deck. A couple of years ago, we planted some vines that were supposed to make their way up the side of the deck and onto the arbor that covers it. We had mistakenly thought that they would accomplish this pretty much on their own.
It turns out that, left to their own devices, these particular vines would rather grow horizontally than vertically. We inadvertently let the vines go on their own for too long this season and they spread out all over that section of the backyard, slowly overwhelming everything in their path.
One of those things was a wrought-iron flamingo planter that we'd purchased in the spring. The flamingo is about three feet tall and has a place in the middle of his back where you can place a flower pot. The vines, which had been small at the beginning of the season but had since been aided by some especially rainy weather, had almost completely covered the ornamental flightless bird.
So Stacy and I decided that it was a good time to free him before the vines got any thicker. As we were pulling him free we decided that "extricating the flamingo" was a good all-purpose euphemism.
This came on the heels of someone at work actually being observed cleaning the surface of a piece of fruit.
"Scott, what are you doing?"
"Polishing my nectarine."
Euphemisms are useful to people who want to talk about things they consider either uncomfortable (death) or taboo (sex). They think that if they say things like "passing away" or "sleeping together" they are somehow being more tactful.
Euphemisms can become fun when they aren't the least bit tactful. Passing away becomes "taking a dirt nap." Sleeping together becomes "doing the horizontal mambo."
I'll admit that almost any phrase can become a racy euphemism, especially if you follow it with "if you know what I mean."
"So, what did you and your girlfriend do last night?"
"We stayed home and polished the nectarine, if you know what I mean."
There's even a random euphemism generator on the Internet. The Web site will complete "The last time I saw him, he was ..." with a random verb-adjective-noun phrase.
You get potentially racy sentences like, "The last time I saw him, he was 'launching the eternal fire hydrant' or 'grasping the velvety ottoman.' "
It's entertaining for about two minutes. Then it's just silly. Euphemisms are more fun when they're naturally occurring. I might actually use "extricating the wrought-iron flamingo" one day because there's a story behind it.
I can't imagine saying "placating the holy phonebook." Even followed by "if you know what I mean," it doesn't make any sense.
My favorite euphemisms are group specific. David Letterman's Top 10 Lists were often group specific euphemisms.
His top 10 Keebler Elf euphemisms for death (for example — creamy casket filling), Canadian euphemism for sex (pulling the goalie) or mob euphemisms for killing somebody (canceling his subscription to Life magazine) are usually hilarious.
Again, the Internet is full of these kinds of lists. Some of them are clever, some not so much. Two of my recent favorites are the cartoon character euphemism for death "catching the big anvil" and "chilling with Walt."
But you have to be on the lookout for euphemisms that are designed not to be funny, but to confuse, inflate or soften the meaning of something that should be straightforward.
A few years ago, car dealers began calling used cars "pre-owned vehicles." Did they really think this was going to work? We're not talking about a pair of jeans here. Someone who "pre-owns" a car for you is not doing you a favor by breaking it in for the first 50,000 miles.
Job titles are famous for trying to make somebody's career seem more important, or at least more dignified, than it is. Calling someone a "sanitation engineer" does not make him any less a garbage man.
I don't mean to denigrate garbage men. But calling me an emperor does not give me an empire any more than calling me a vertically challenged person of girth keeps me from being a short, fat guy. Politicians can call a cardboard box a "makeshift home" and a committee a "task force" or a tax increase a "revenue enhancement," but if we're paying attention, we know what they're talking about.
The Military is especially good at this. The people who once changed the name of their political leader from secretary of war to "secretary of defense" and changed the MX missile to the "peacekeeper," are masters. A war has "friendly fire" and "collateral damage." An early morning parachute drop is evidently called "a pre-dawn vertical insertion," if you know what I mean.
George Carlin pointed out that "shell shock" became "battle fatigue," which has become "post traumatic stress disorder," all in an attempt to soften the reality that war is hell.
The fact is you have to think about euphemisms all the time. Sometimes you think about them because they're fun, but most of the time because they intentionally make something unclear.
