I’ve always been fascinated by the use of ‘shop lifting’ for ‘stealing’. I wonder how that came about – and why? Who decided that we’d cushion the harshness, the directness, the in-your-faceness of ‘thief’ with the much gentler ‘shop lifter’?
I guess I could look it up if I was so inclined.
Also, who decided they’d term the injuring and killing of civilians ‘collateral damage’ as if people were bits of furniture that got in the way of bombs and bullets.
Or ‘friendly fire’ rather than saying you killed people on your own side?
And do women still ‘powder their noses’ when they need to pee? And do parents still talk about number ones and twos with their kids?
Don’t get me wrong, euphemisms serve a purpose. Sometimes saying the thing itself is too blunt, too harsh, too direct. We’re much more inclined to say that someone has ‘passed away’ than they’ve ‘died’. Or as one grieving wife told her daughter the other day “Daddy has gone on a work trip with Jesus”. There’s a finality to the blunter word that is softened by other ways of phrasing it.
When we rename harsh realities euphemistically, they may not hurt so much, they may make the reality more palatable. They may make it easier to convey things that we’re otherwise embarrassed or uncomfortable to convey.
For instance, I was sacked this week. Not for any wrongdoing or poor performance – purely as an economic decision.
Since learning of said sacking, I’ve been struggling with how to soften the message when I tell other people, of how to not sound bitter (I’m honestly not at all bitter), of how to communicate that it wasn’t because I was bad at my job.
And so I’ve been turning to euphemisms – softer words that cushion the harsh reality of having been ‘given my notice’, ‘let go’, ‘restructured out’, ‘transitioned’, ‘invited to pursue other opportunities’.
So here I am, ‘hanging up my hat’, ‘calling it a day’, ‘moving into a new season’, ‘starting a new chapter’, or if you prefer, ‘entering into a period of rewirement’ (a fantastically euphemistic word if ever I heard one).
Or another way to look at it is, that at this very early stage of transition from work to whatever comes after it, I’m simply ‘between adventures’.
That’s a euphemism I can live with!
Musings from the cold 