Coat it with sugar!

Coat it with sugar!“No wonder you have so few friends,” my friend said in a voice that was amused, annoyed or plain impatient, I could not decide.

“What did I say? Is it wrong to say things as they are?” I asked.

“No, you speak too bluntly, they do not sound good. You should cover your words in feathers and then throw them. Try using softer words.”

That set me thinking. I have always spoken about everything as it is. There have been repercussions, I must admit, but I thought my life was going fine. But maybe it isn’t. Is it time I change my style of speaking?

That would mean I have to start using words which convey what I want to say but sound soft or sweet. Instead of calling somebody ‘stupid’, I should say, airhead, dim bulb, lost his/her marbles, a few peas short of a casserole, not the sharpest pencil in the box.

We know that these words are called euphemisms in English.

Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines ‘euphemism’ as an indirect word or phrase that people often use to refer to something embarrassing or unpleasant, sometimes to make it seem more acceptable than it really is. The Collins Dictionary terms it as an inoffensive, word or phrase substituted for one considered offensive, or hurtful.

As almost always, the Greeks were the first to use the word euphemia or ‘words of good omen’ and euphemos or ‘auspicious’. Their superstition was to avoid the use of expressions which denoted ill-omen, especially during religious functions.

Euphemisms are words that express negative emotions like anger, disappointment, frustration, shame, surprise or stigma in a more socially acceptable manner, soften the blow or downplay the issue.

So, when talking of topics like bodily functions, death, finance, sex, politics, religion, we might formulate as to express what does not embarrass or shock, but sound comfortable. Some examples of euphemisms are:

Dying is on the top of the list. The end of somebody’s life on this planet means the person is gone, passed away, moved to a better place/left for his/her heavenly abode (How can one living on earth know that?)

Alcohol: adult beverage

Second-hand: pre-owned

Unemployed: between jobs

Old person: senior citizen, seasoned, enjoying golden years, over the hill

Bathroom: From lavatory to washroom this has a long list as if getting rid of the things you do not need for a clean body from inside and outside are a matter of shame.

Fire from job -let go. You have to avoid saying no longer with us as that could also mean dead. 

Homeless: on the streets

Poor: from the lower economic strata of society

Handicapped: physically challenged, differently abled

Taxes: user’s fees

Drunk: pickled in party juice, doing the wobble without music, dancing with the lamp post

Sex: It is strange that people indulge in it and yet this taboo word has extensive covers from doing it’ or intercourse to funny business, hanky-panky, amorous congress, buttering a biscuit or baking a potato.

Pregnant: something which other people find embarrassing to mention, so say good news (ask the parents), expecting (what), have a bun in the oven, in the family way.

A company suffering losses is said to have a negative cashflow.

One doesn’t quit, they throw in the towel, hang their boots or step down.

You dare not call a 100-kilo wobbly human being fat, he/she shall scream ‘body shaming’. You have to say plus- sized, big-boned/big-bodied, on the plumper side or well-fed, something we say in Hindi-khate peete ghar ke (coming from a home of ample resources).

Nobody is ever useless. They could be lacking in contribution, not optimally utilized/fully engaged/very productive, underperforming. That would absolve the speaker of all blame/criticism and he/she would sound more caring.

Nobody pays a bribe, they grease the palms, or give hush money.

You must never say propaganda, call it newspeak.

Euphemisms downplay warranted emotional force. So, why call anti-abortionists so? They are pro-life even though the matter concerns somebody else’s body and choice!

Shakespeare’s literary works are replete with such examples. In Othello, he used the expression the beast with two backs for a couple engaged in sex. In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth obscures the real meaning and tells Macbeth that Duncan must be provided for. Duncan is dead by sunrise.

Some others which remain painful and disturbing for me even as white-washed expressions include collateral damage, the euphemism used for innocent civilians not involved in war, but who lost their lives. Joy-camp is the sanitized word for a forced-labour camp while enhanced interrogation veils the horrors of torture. Forced relocation of residents is softened to transfer of population. President Bush in his speech on the day of military invasion of Iraq by the US (2003), masked it as military operation or a disarming mission.

So, if you see me turning to mute mode during a conversation, relax. It is merely my mind desperately racing in all directions searching for sweeter and softer equivalents of the unpleasant words my vocabulary is throwing up. I might even succeed in covering it in sugar and making it sound like what it is not.

                                                                                            - Anupama S Mani