Euphemisms Essay, Research Paper

Euphemisms can be used to make something bad sound not so bad, for example when showing compassion to someone who has lost a loved one, but when euphemisms are used to disguise a harmful meaning or event, then it becomes doublespeak. People in our society use euphemisms in every day life. Just as people have evolved, Hayakawa claims words evolve along with their meaning. He also says words change their meaning from person to person. He states the word nigger is an insult to the African Americans, but is part of the Hispanic language, which refers to them as a society. Today’s politician lives off double speak and wouldn’t survive without them. Yet Lakeoff claims that everyone is a politician and we all use doublespeak. That’s so true because you couldn’t watch TV without seeing some kind of form of doublespeak. Also, the military uses double speak to try to cover their butt and make war sound decent when death and fighting can never be decent. Lutz stated when it came time for war; the word killing was no longer used. Instead they called it “arbitrary deprivation of life”. Orwell also uses military double speak to make war sound acceptable. Orwell stated during the Vietnam War, that politicians said an “incursion” wasn’t an invasion, but a “protective reaction strike”.