Political Euphemisms from WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show by listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Publi

Ralph Keyes, author of many books including the new Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms, talks about the prevalence of euphemisms in our culture—particularly when talking politics.

Download that podcast here. The best review on the book that we've read so far, comes out of the National Post (Canada). Stephen Marche, there, covered the title, had these closing statements:

Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist, explained our tendency to euphemism as an expression of human selfishness: It gives us “the profit of saying and the profit of denying what is said.” The slipperiness of euphemisms explains their attraction to politicians, who hate making enemies among potential voters. The tendency to be inoffensive in language can have unfortunate consequences, however, both personally and politically. A recent article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, “Who you calling obese, Doc?” debated the merits of adding “medically” in front of “obese” in an attempt to soften the stigma of the word: “Though lapsing into euphemism can soften a bleak diagnosis, it can also lead to confusion. Euphemism is no friend of precision. Thus doctors are sometimes faced with a dilemma: Should I be sensitive or accurate?” Even in the most crucial decisions of our life, we avoid direct language. “Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” T.S. Eliot wrote. Euphemania, while proving Eliot’s statement, also offers an appealing countertruth. The cowardice of euphemism is always defeated in the end. Everyone with a brain eventually works out what is being said. And then the codes become more amusing than confounding. An obituary of an English aristocrat once noted that the deceased lord was “an uncompromisingly direct ladies’ man.” Everybody knew that meant he was a public flasher. You just needed to know the code.

Find that National Post review here. The History Channel also featured the author and book; see that webpage here.

"'Pushing Up Daisies' And Our Passion For Euphemisms" from NPR's talk of the Nation

From "passed away" to "Chilean sea bass," euphemisms are a way to avoid unpleasant terms or phrases. But in Euphemania, Ralph Keyes argues that using them isn't necessarily lazy or evasive; it can actually be harder to not say what we mean and still get our point across. "Euphemisms can be incredibly playful and a lot of fun — very creative," Keyes tells NPR's Neal Conan. Take, for example, the euphemisms we use for death. Keyes notes that the French talk about "eating dandelions by the root," their version of "pushing up daisies." He also recalls an old high school classmate who once told him how the life insurance industry avoids the word: "When one of their policy holders became eligible for his benefits to go to his heirs, they said he was 'post-retirement.'" And one of the author's favorite modern expressions is "going offline."

Read that full NPR feature story here. Download the podcast here. Read a few pages of the book here. See also: The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear In "To Put It Another Way: True, we often try to avoid plain words, but we should be careful about what we call a euphemism," Eric Felten out of the Wall Street Journal writes that the author:

[...] assures us that his book "is not meant to be a compilation of euphemisms." And yet that is mostly what it is. Alas, while piling up examples, Mr. Keyes seems to exhibit a glib indifference to whether the euphemisms he cites were ever in real circulation. Consider one of the first examples he offers of military circumlocution: "Bombadiers no longer 'drop bombs,' " he writes; "they unleash vertically deployed antipersonnel devices." Really? Goodness knows the military is rife with jargon, some of it euphemistic. But just try to find an instance of "vertically deployed antipersonnel device" actually being used by the military. The source for this claim appears to be one of several books on euphemisms published over the past couple of decades. And those books seem to have based the claim on a brief item 20 years ago in the Quarterly Review of Doublespeak, a newsletter once compiled by William Lutz, a Rutgers University professor.

Read that WSJ piece here.

Word Maven Patricia T. O'Conner from Lopate - Underreported by listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio)

Our word maven, Patricia T. O'Conner, answers questions about the English language and grammar. An updated and expanded third edition of her book, Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English, has recently been published in paperback, and a paperback version of Origins of the Specious, written with Stewart Kellerman, was just issued. Have a question about language and grammar?

Good God, we wish these titles were on the Kindle! Read the full The Leonard Lopate Show story here, and listen to the podcast. See also: Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language