Euphemistic Language: Why we don’t always say what we really think.
Politicians, religious leaders, soldiers, and doctors- what do they all have in common? Generous, if not downright excessive use of euphemistic language. The euphemism, a linguistic structure that substitutes a mild of indirect word or expression for one considered to be harsh or blunt, is a cornerstone of American culture. Dogs aren’t euthanized, they’re “put down.” Grandma didn’t die from cancer, she’s “in a better place.” Dick Cheney didn’t torture Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay, he directed “enhanced interrogation tactics” to “encourage suspects to divulge military intel.” The list goes on and on. Euphemisms seem to find their way into every book, movie, and conversation. But why are they so prevalent?
“We can’t be afraid of words that speak the truth, even if they’re truths that we don’t want to hear.”
-George Carlin on Euphemisms
Euphemisms allow humans to, in a sense, hide from the harsher truths of life. Discussions regarding death, crime, and violence are often rife with euphemistic language to avoid evoking negative emotion. Likewise, they give speakers a tool to step around the “taboos” of race, sex, and religion in day to day conversation. To this end, one of the major uses of the euphemism is politeness. In a study done by Monashnenko et al. in 2021, which focused on political correctness in modern English, it was found that people often use euphemisms to avoid negative response in discussions regarding age, socioeconomic status, physical/mental ability, and ethnic background. For example, a child struggling in school may be called a “late bloomer” instead of stupid, or someone who is aging is seen as “wise” instead of old.
From this, it can be seen that euphemistic language also plays a major role in discriminatory language. Euphemisms have been historically used to mask racist beliefs behind what could be seen as non-controversial statements. A well-known example of this was especially popular during Nazi-occupied Germany when systematic mass genocide became known as “The Final Solution.” During the civil rights movement in the United States, politicians avoided admitting they were pro-segregation by invoking “states rights” (and the same invocation is being used for overturning Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court as I write this). There are even euphemisms for calling someone or something racist, such as “bigoted,” “ethno-nationalist,” or “cultural purist”
Sometimes euphemistic language is used with the best intentions. Maybe when you were a kid and your pet died, your parents told you they “went to a farm upstate,” or they were “put down” instead of euthanized. In these cases, euphemistic language serves to protect us from harsh truths that may otherwise cause more pain. Using “passed away” is still more commonly used than “died” when we speak about loved ones who we’ve lost. We still known what happened, but we’re less likely to ruminate on horrible images of how someone died or whether they were alone or in pain.
In India, there are many misconceptions about the cause and prognosis of illness, which may lead some to avoid using terminology associated with their illness when discussing it with medical professionals, family members, or even themselves. A study performed by Epton et al. (2020) provides evidence that euphemisms create a protective barrier against grim realities that may be anxiety-provoking or associated with stigma and misinformation. It found that Indian cancer patients who used euphemisms to describe their illness were likely to have poorer health outcomes than those who did not. While a euphemism may help to provide a shield against the reality of a serious or life-threatening illness, we minimize the severity by using softer language. The psyche adapts in ways that can not only impact our psychological health, but our physical health as well.
A comprehensive study performed by Walker et al. (2021) analyzed the extent to which our cognitions are impacted by euphemistic language. In the first of four studies, participants were given a set of terms that used euphemistic (agreeable) language and dysphemistic (disagreeable) language. For example, a euphemistic item from the study was “meat processing plant,” while a dysphemistic item was “slaughterhouse.” After reading these items, participants were asked to rate how acceptable they found each phrase to be. On average, the euphemistic (agreeable) language was rated the highest in acceptability suggesting that euphemistic language can positively bias our interpretation of a word or phrase (Walker et al., 2021).
The second study assessed the extent to which euphemistic and dysphemistic action statements were deemed to be deceptive, truthful, and permissible when describing a detailed action description. One example item described the way in which an individual protested outside a government building. The euphemistic statement described the individual as a “political activist,” the dysphemistic statement read “political extremist,” and a lie described the protestor to have “violently assaulted political opponents” at the protest (Walker et al., 2021). Comfortingly, results showed that participants found both euphemistic and dysphemistic action statements to be more truthful as compared with the lie.
The third study evaluated how participants judged statements about a hypothetical individual as being trustworthy and of good character after reading action-depicting statements performed by them compared with blatant lies. Participants consistently rated the individual’s trustworthiness as much higher with euphemistic and dysphemistic action statements than with lies.
The fourth study study assess the extent to which use of euphemistic and dysphemistic language affects individual’s perceptions of situations when given a lot of background information as opposed to a little background information about the conditions surrounding the action. Similar to the first experiment, participants were more likely to judge an action more favorably when an action was described using euphemistic (agreeable) language (Walker et al., 2021). Actions that were described in more detail were judged less positively (disagreeable) than those that were more ambiguous (Walker et al., 2021). In sum, people are less likely to be swayed by the language choice of someone telling them about the event. As they know more about the event, they are still more likely to trust and agree with actions that are described using agreeable terms as opposed to disagreeable terms.
One issue that we learn about with the results of the Walker et al. (2021) study is that euphemistic language offers the speaker plausible deniability. We hear this all the time when politicians carefully choose the language they use to describe their actions, like when President Clinton famously said “I did not have sexual relations with that women.” We later learned that his definition of “sexual relations” did not encompass the acts which he was found to have done, however he could not be said to have been lying because the term “sexual relations” was vague enough that it wasn’t technically a lie. Although we joke about the whole fiasco today, it is still an ongoing issue in politics, perhaps the most relevant examples today are the concepts of “fake news” and “alternative facts.” In these cases, you could almost say politicians are becoming increasingly “creative with the truth.” As a matter of fact, some researchers argue that political euphemisms are unique to the extent that they are used as a way to distort factual information (Monashnenko et al., 2021).
While there are millions of reasons to use euphemistic language, it’s important to ask the question where should we draw the line between a euphemism and a lie? Or more specifically, when does a euphemism do more harm than help? Phrases like “alternative facts” and “fake news” become increasingly dangerous when people hear them on repeat in modern media echo chambers. The increased twisting of language that has dominated the American political discourse during the 20th and 21st centuries has bred a distinct lack of trust in science, politicians, political parties, and perhaps most importantly, the entire American democracy. I think that while the occasional euphemism- like the occasional white lie- is often harmless, the continued movement away from honest language is something that must be watched carefully. It is difficult to come to consensus when the medium of discussion is different depending on your side of an argument. Euphemistic language is something we have to keep in mind the next time we see that illegal immigrants are being housed in “detention centers,” or that Uyghurs are being “strongly encouraged to go to re-education centers.” To speak raw truth is at times difficult, but necessary in the prevention of societal decay.
References
Epton, T., Chittem, M., Tanikella, R., Rajappa, S., Sinha, S., & Harris, P. R. (2020). Indian Patient Use of Cancer Euphemisms: Association With Psychological Outcomes and Health Behaviours. Psycho-Oncology, 29(7), 1193–1200. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.5408
Monashnenko, A., Amelina, S., & Shynkaruk, V. (2021). The Phenomenon of Political Correctness in Modern English. Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research. https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210525.019
Walker, A. C., Turpin, M. H., Meyers, E. A., Stolz, J. A., Fugelsang, J. A., & Koehler, D. J. (2021). Controlling the Narrative: Euphemistic Language Affects Judgments of Actions While Avoiding Perceptions of Dishonesty. Cognition, 211, 104633. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104633
