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Euphemism Quotes

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Euphemism Quotes

“*Prostitution* is a euphemism for rape incidents that the victim and the economy profits from.”

PhilosophyHumorHumanityMoneyCompassionPovertyEconomyHumourEmpathyMercyVictimCharityProfitPhilosopherSelfishSelfishnessSatireSympathyGenesSelflessAltruismSelflessnessRapePaymentProstitutionUnselfishRewardVictimsSatiristUnselfishnessTeresaEuphemismTaxNelson MandelaGenieSocial CriticismProstitutesRapistsMandelaGeneMother TeresaRapistGhandiMahatma GhandiInfedelity
Book:The Selfish Genie: A Satirical Essay on Altruism
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“As he once wrote of Kipling, his own enduring influence can be measured by a number of terms and phrases—doublethink, thought police, 'Some animals are more equal than others'—that he embedded in our language and in our minds. In Orwell's own mind there was an inextricable connection between language and truth, a conviction that by using plain and unambiguous words one could forbid oneself the comfort of certain falsehoods and delusions. Every time you hear a piece of psychobabble or propaganda—'people's princess,' say, or 'collateral damage,' or 'peace initiative'—it is good to have a well-thumbed collection of his essays nearby. His main enemy in discourse was euphemism, just as his main enemy in practice was the abuse of power, and (more important) the slavish willingness of people to submit to it.”

MindTruthLanguagePeacePowerInfluenceLiesConvictionEqualityPropagandaPhrasesDelusionAnimalsSubmissionEuphemismGeorge OrwellCollateral DamagePlain LanguageThought PoliceTermsDoublethinkRudyard KiplingDiana Princess Of Wales
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Many things in this period have been hard to bear, or hard to take seriously. My own profession went into a protracted swoon during the Reagan-Bush-Thatcher decade, and shows scant sign of recovering a critical faculty—or indeed any faculty whatever, unless it is one of induced enthusiasm for a plausible consensus President. (We shall see whether it counts as progress for the same parrots to learn a new word.) And my own cohort, the left, shared in the general dispiriting move towards apolitical, atonal postmodernism. Regarding something magnificent, like the long-overdue and still endangered South African revolution (a jagged fit in the supposedly smooth pattern of axiomatic progress), one could see that Ariadne’s thread had a robust reddish tinge, and that potential citizens had not all deconstructed themselves into Xhosa, Zulu, Cape Coloured or ‘Eurocentric’; had in other words resisted the sectarian lesson that the masters of apartheid tried to teach them. Elsewhere, though, it seemed all at once as if competitive solipsism was the signifier of the ‘radical’; a stress on the salience not even of the individual, but of the trait, and from that atomization into the lump of the category. Surely one thing to be learned from the lapsed totalitarian system was the unwholesome relationship between the cult of the masses and the adoration of the supreme personality. Yet introspective voyaging seemed to coexist with dull group-think wherever one peered about among the formerly ‘committed’. Traditionally then, or tediously as some will think, I saw no reason to discard the Orwellian standard in considering modern literature. While a sort of etiolation, tricked out as playfulness, had its way among the non-judgemental, much good work was still done by those who weighed words as if they meant what they said. Some authors, indeed, stood by their works as if they had composed them in solitude and out of conviction. Of these, an encouraging number spoke for the ironic against the literal mind; for the generously interpreted interest of all against the renewal of what Orwell termed the ‘smelly little orthodoxies’—tribe and Faith, monotheist and polytheist, being most conspicuous among these new/old disfigurements. In the course of making a film about the decaffeinated hedonism of modern Los Angeles, I visited the house where Thomas Mann, in another time of torment, wrote Dr Faustus. My German friends were filling the streets of Munich and Berlin to combat the recrudescence of the same old shit as I read: This old, folkish layer survives in us all, and to speak as I really think, I do. not consider religion the most adequate means of keeping it under lock and key. For that, literature alone avails, humanistic science, the ideal of the free and beautiful human being. [italics mine] The path to this concept of enlightenment is not to be found in the pursuit of self-pity, or of self-love. Of course to be merely a political animal is to miss Mann’s point; while, as ever, to be an apolitical animal is to leave fellow-citizens at the mercy of Ideolo’. For the sake of argument, then, one must never let a euphemism or a false consolation pass uncontested. The truth seldom lies, but when it does lie it lies somewhere in between.”

TruthFilmScienceReligionFaithLiteraturePoliticsUnited StatesProgressAtheismSelf LoveEnlightenmentArgumentLiesHumanismConvictionRussiaSocialismJournalismCommunismIronyGermanyLos AngelesIndividualismSouth AfricaCold WarSoviet UnionTotalitarianismCritical ThinkingOrthodoxyBerlinSelf PityApartheidPostmodernismLiterary CriticismSectarianismTribalismPopulismEuphemismHedonismMonotheismGeorge OrwellMunichGroupthinkSolipsismPolytheismThomas MannPotusRonald ReaganRadical PoliticsMargaret ThatcherRight Wing PoliticsLeft Wing PoliticsApoliticismGeorge Hw BushBought PriesthoodXhosa PeopleZulu PeopleCape ColouredsEurocentricismGerman PeoplePersonality Politics
Book:For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports
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“Medicinal Spirit, Inside Mirror Therapy becomes a harmony, and that harmony is built on levels, No one knows how to upscale another, for it has to come from the inside grails, Striking inflicts at the mirror and hatred to the being of creator, Causes hate in mirror too and abused flesh to the author, Changes come from its prudence and rationalism liberation, Not its pardon, A mirror is but a substance of a conscious, But identity says "let me fly" when journeying from the subconscious to the conscious.”

PoetryIdentityPoetPoemConscienceOptimismHarmonyLiberationOppositionPoeticPessimismPrudenceChange Your LifeSoul SearchingChange QuotesReflectionsEmpowerEuphoriaEuphemismEuphoricReflection On LifeReflected In You
Book:Awakening Kings and Princes Volume I
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“In many a case, the phrase ‘I’d like to get to know you better’ is a euphemism for ‘I want us to fuck.”

WritingRomanceLanguageRelationshipsTalkingRelationshipStyleCommunicationBedConversationSpeechCourtWordsTonguePursueDiscourseWoeVocabularyCantAcquaintanceKnowTalkSeeSpeakingCourtshipDialectJargonDateIdiomSlangEuphemismTerminologyFuckChaseMother TongueSexual IntercourseWordingCourtingExpressionsMake LoveEuphemismsWooChoice Of WordsLingoSleep WithPatoisNative TonguePhrasingAcquaintMake AcquaintanceParlancePhraseologyTurns Of PhraseUsagesArgotDysphemismDysphemismsForm Of ExpressionGo Out WithGo Steady WithIdiolectLocutionsMode Of ExpressionRun AfterSeek The HandSet One S Cap For
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“I grin. “It’s just a party,” I assure her. “Nothin’ big.” “There ain’t nothin’ that happens on this ranch that’s organized by your mama that ain’t big. That woman’s about as subtle as a shotgun.” “A shotgun can be subtle if it ain’t bein’ fired,” I point out. She narrows her eyes. I think she’s about to quip back with something super sassy, but then a smile wrinkles up her face. “You sayin’ I’m better off to keep the shotgun from firin’?” “I’m sayin’ quit playin’ with the trigger, Grandma.”

GrandmotherSouthernEuphemismCountry LifeSassy DialogueShotgun
Book:Football Sundae
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“Come," he said gently, for he knew she'd been through travail. "I sought you out amongst your labors to bend my knee and plead that you leave the dust and spiders and mouse droppings to come and lounge awhile and perhaps partake of luncheon." Interestingly, she blushed. "I can't do that," she hissed under her breath. "Why not?" he asked, deeply diverted by her reaction. "The other servants." He blinked. "I assure you, I do let all my servants partake of luncheon." "But if I am with you..." Her blush deepened. He cocked his head, studying her, entirely baffled. "I didn't mean luncheon as a euphemism; however, I'm entirely happy to adjourn to my rooms right at this moment if that is-" "No," she said with what some might take as unflattering emphasis. She rolled her eyes as if he were the one being difficult, which, to be fair, he often was. "Let's go have luncheon." He smiled. "Splendid!" She looked at him a little shyly. Absolutely enchanting. "I'm dusty. I'll go wash first and meet you in the dining room, shall I?" He bowed with a flourish. "I await your presence." She looked flustered at that and he was very tempted to perhaps lean her up against one of the tables and-”

EuphemismVal NapierBridget And ValLuncheon
Book:Duke of Sin
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“Well, I'm not sure the New York Times was consciously trying to trivialise me, but the effect of it is to put everything in the same category as the gossip you read in the magazines you pick up at supermarket counters. I was asked, for example, why I thought there were so many euphemisms for genitalia. It's not a serious question. Whatever the purpose of such a tone is, the effect is to make it appear that anyone who departs from orthodox political doctrine is in some ways laughable.”

PoliticsMagazinesGossipSupermarketsEuphemismGenitaliaThe New York TimesGossip Magazines
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.”

PeopleWritingFacesPoliticalLanguagePartySpeechArgumentIndiaAimBritishDefenseOur TimeBombsJapanSquaresAtomsBrutalSheerPolitical PartiesDroppingBeggingCloudyEuphemismAtom BombDeportationContinuanceVaguenessPolitical SpeechesPolitical LanguageBritish RuleSpeech And WritingBritish Rule In India
Book:Orwell and Politics
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“In South America euphemism appears to be the grisly preserve of violent power. 'Liberty' was the name of the biggest prison in Uruguay under the military dictatorship, while in Chile one of the concentration camps was called 'Dignity.' It was the self-styled 'Peace and Justice' paramilitary group in Chiapas [Mexico] that in 1997 shot 45 peasants in the back, nearly all of them women and children, as they prayed in a church. What have the souls of the south done over the past few decades to deserve quite so much liberty and dignity and peace and justice?”

ChildrenSoulSelfDoneAmericaPastNamesLanguageChurchJusticeLibertyViolenceGroupsMilitaryShotsDeserveDignityPrisonSouthDecadesViolentOppressionPreservesConcentrationCampsMexicoDictatorshipPeasantsOver The PastPeace And JusticeChileSouth AmericaConcentration CampEuphemism
Author:Isabel Fonseca
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“Affirmative action was designed originally for "women and other minorities" but the phrase has become just another tortured euphemism. Female conscientiousness and eagerness to please have always made women good students and natural test takers. Jews have gloried in scholarship throughout the ages, and Asians of both sexes score so high on SATs and IQ tests that they regard affirmative action as an impediment. Affirmative action really means favoritism for blacks for the sake of racial peace, but the favor is pure chimera, and so, increasingly, is the peace.”

MeanMadeAgeActionSexNaturalRaceStudentsPleasePureFemaleTestsRegardSakeJewFavorsPhrasesSatScoreMinoritiesReally MeanScholarshipAffirmative ActionAffirmativeImpedimentsEagernessEuphemismGood StudentsChimeraFavoritismConscientiousness
Author:Florence King
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“We need to make sure that whenever we're engaging in a cyber-warfare campaign, a cyber-espionage campaign in the United States, that we understand the word cyber is used as a euphemism for the internet, because the American public would not be excited to hear that we're doing internet warfare campaigns, internet espionage campaigns, because we realize that we ourselves are impacted by it.”

NeedsStatesUsedRealizingUnitedUnited StatesInternetExcitedCampaignsWarfareEngagingEspionageCyberEuphemismCyber Warfare
Author:Edward Snowden
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“In the weeks prior to the war to liberate Afghanistan, a good friend of mine would ask me almost every day, “Why aren't we killing people yet?” And I never had a good answer for him. Because one of the most important and vital things the United States could do after 9/11 was to kill people. Call it a “forceful response,” “decisive action” ' whatever. Those are all nice euphemisms for killing people. And the world is a better place because America saw the necessity of putting steel beneath the velvet of those euphemisms.”

PeopleWorldImportantWarStatesActionAmericaAsksAnswersUnitedUnited StatesSawsNiceWeekMinesResponseKillingAsk MeAfghanistanGood FriendSteelBetter PlaceVelvetEuphemismDecisive Action
Author:Jonah Goldberg
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“We have entered a period of intolerance which combines, as it sometimes does in America, with a sugary taste for euphemism. This conjunction fosters events that go beyond the wildest dream of satire- if satire existed in America anymore; perhaps the reason for its weakness is that reality has superseded it.”

IfsDoeSometimesReasonDreamRealityAmericaEventsInternetPeriodsTasteWeaknessSatireIntoleranceFree SpeechEuphemismConjunctionsWildest Dreams
Author:Robert Hughes
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“As any sin passes through its stages from temptation, to toleration, to approval, its name is first euphemized, then avoided, then forgotten. A colleague tells me that some of his fellow legal scholars call child molestation "intergenerational intimacy": that's euphemism. A good-hearted editor tried to talk me out of using the term "sodomy": that's avoidance. My students don't know the word "fornication" at all: that's forgetfulness.”

KnowsFirstsChildrenNamesTermSinStageStudentsFellowsForgottenTemptationIntimacyEditorsScholarApprovalColleaguesAvoidedHeartedAvoidanceForgetfulnessTolerationEuphemismGood HeartedMolestation
Author:J. Budziszewski
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“The terms "idiot" and "lunatic" were acceptable diagnostic terms in England up until 1959. "Imbecile" and "feeble-minded person" were, likewise, listed as official categories in the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. England has always lagged a bit behind in discarding outdated terms for the disadvantaged. When I was there in 1980, it was still possible to shop for used clothing at the local Spastic Shop. That is, compared to the United States, where it takes, oh, about twenty-five minutes for a diagnostic euphemism to become a conversational faux pas.”

PersonsStillsStatesUsedBitsTermUnitedBehindsUnited StatesFiveMinutesEnglandTwentiesLocalsIdiotOfficialsShopsCategoriesClothingsAcceptableFive MinutesLunaticTwenty FiveDeficiencyOutdatedImbecilesEuphemismDisadvantagedFauxFaux Pas
Book:Six Feet Over: Adventures in the Afterlife
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