Okay, I will admit it: I enjoy studying euphemisms.

Euphemisms are those words we use as a substitute for a word that may be unpleasant or offensive. Many years ago, for instance, a proper farm wife wouldn’t say “boar” or “bull.” She would euphemize with “the male animal.”

The late British raconteur Quentin Crisp described euphemisms as “unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.”

Euphemisms pop up early in our lives as our parents attempt to prevent us from embarrassing them. Often the euphemisms parents teach their little ones are more embarrassing than the real words.

A friend’s parents taught her to say “awkie” instead of “poop,” which is a euphemism itself. She didn’t know that “awkie” was a euphemism until she used the word one day in junior high and her friends set her straight (after laughing at her.)

When nature calls some folks ask, “Where is the washroom?” Others will ask for the men’s room or women’s room. Some guys still “need to see a guy about a horse” or “go to the can” but, it seems, no one goes to the toilet any more.

In grade school we went to the restroom, not to rest but to go “No. 1” or “No. 2.” I don’t know about you, but I never did arithmetic in there.

When I was a kid, “unmentionable” referred to undergarments. Since Victoria’s Secret came along nothing in that category remains unmentionable. On second thought, I guess we still refer to Dad’s briefs as “tighty whiteys.”

What we formerly referred to as used cars are now pre-owned. A run-down house is now a fixer-upper.

Senior citizens, formerly old people, are now “golden agers” and old timers are now “retirees.” My wife and I are part of a group of older members in our church who get together for social events and service projects; we refer to ourselves as “Seasoned Citizens.”

Credit card issuers refer to their convenient terms. “Convenient terms” is a euphemism for usury, which is also euphemistically called highway robbery.

The bad guys used to go to prison; nowadays they go to “correctional facilities.”

Women didn’t get pregnant when I was a kid; they got into “the family way.”

People no longer get fired; now they get “let go.”

I’m guilty of using the phrase “passed away” instead of died.

We no longer have drunks or junkies — we have substance abusers. Adultery and fornication are now called sleeping together. Our society no longer has prostitution or pornography; we have a commercial sex industry.

Our federal government is full of euphemisms and that’s where euphemisms become scary.

We now call slaughtered civilians in a military action “collateral damage.” Patriotism — a beautiful term — now means “agreeing with the government.”

Two decades ago the Bush administration used “enhanced interrogation” to describe what we used to call torture. Don’t worry about the Geneva Convention because the subjects of said techniques are not prisoners of war. They are “unlawful combatants.”

Terms like “recession” and “negative growth” are often euphemized as “downsizing” or “workforce adjustment.”

Sixty-some years ago the U.S. Department of Defense called its airstrikes in Vietnam “air support” and “protective action,” the destruction of Vietnamese villages a “pacification program” and homeless refugees as “ambient non-combat personnel.”

Political euphemisms should be of particular concern. Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler used the phrase “die Endlösung der Judenfrage” (the final solution of the Jewish question) as a nice sounding euphemism for their plan to exterminate European Jews. When their “final solution” was stopped by the Allies, they and their henchmen had murdered more than six million innocent Jews.

When our leaders use euphemisms to describe their plans or actions, I am immediately suspicious. I am worried by our leaders’ use of euphemisms to push something ugly down our throats by making it sound nice.

The late George Carlin, a man who should have used more euphemisms, once said, “The more syllables a euphemism has, the further divorced from reality it is.”

Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. © 2025 by Huisman Communications.