Home > Topic > euphemisms
1 " She started thinking about all the euphemisms for death, all the anxious taboos that had always fascinated her. It was too bad you could never have an intelligent discussion on the subject. People were either too young or too old, or else they didn't have time. "
― Tove Jansson , The Summer Book
2 " In 1487 alone, two hundred heretics had-in one of the greatest euphemisms in the history of language-" relaxed," that is, burned at the stake. Dogs of God, Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors "
3 " There's a grosser irony about Politically Correct English. This is that PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact - in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself - of vastly more help to conservatives and the US status quo than traditional SNOOT prescriptions ever were. "
― David Foster Wallace , Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
4 " The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another the ultimate assumption remains: " I feed on your energy. "
5 " Awkward conversations. They’re the heart of the drug trade. The driving force that keeps criminals out of jail is paranoia. You can think you know people, but the truth is, you never know who they’re talking to. The life of an outlaw: Around every corner lies a cop. In every basement waits a bust. Every friend is the guy who sells you out to keep his own ass out of jail. Sure, it was rare, but you just never knew.The result was a series of shorthand and euphemisms so obscure even the pros often weren’t sure what they were talking about. Sales became pickups. Pot, ganja, bud, or weed became lettuce, green, happy, herb, smoke... the list went on, and changed from dealer to dealer. "
― Daniel Younger , Zen and the Art of Cannibalism: A Zomedy
6 " She was appalled by West Egg’s raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that eroded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand. "
― F. Scott Fitzgerald , The Great Gatsby
7 " Every individual needs revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing order, and renewal, but not by forcing them upon his neighbors under the hypocritical cloak of Christian love or the sense of social responsibility or any of the other beautiful euphemisms for unconscious urges to personal power. "
― C.G. Jung
8 " Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses. "
