Dysphemism

In language, dysphemism, malphemism, and cacophemism refer to the usage of an intentionally harsh (rather than polite) word or expression; roughly the opposite of euphemism.

Referring to the paper version of an online magazine as the "dead tree edition" or conventional postal mail as "snail-mail" are examples of dysphemisms.

Examples

Many dysphemisms are pejoratives, e.g., referring to the police as the "pigs," or referring to homosexual men as "fags." Others are playful, e.g., referring to a cigarette as a "cancer stick."

Referring to a person by an animal name, such as pig, cow, chicken, donkey, ass, or bitch, is almost always a dysphemism, and the last two terms are often considered profane.

Using an adjective as a name, e.g. "Cripple" for "has a crippling injury", "White" for "White person", or "retard" for "retarded", is generally more offensive, so it is considered a dysphemism.

Using the name of a medical condition, mental disorder, physical injury, sexuality, or social class to describe a more generic issue is also a dysphemism. Examples include saying that an effeminate man is "gay", referring to a ridiculous person or action as "retarded", saying that an overly cautious person "has OCD", or referring to being boring as being lame. Similarly, using a generic term on a disabled or different person is offensive. "Spastic" is an offense to individuals living with cerebral palsy, but is okay in the context of hyperactivity.

List of Dysphemisms, Euphemisms, and Neutral Terms

Dysphemism	Orthophemism (neutral)	Euphemism
Terrorist	Rebel	Freedom Fighter
Dorky, Nerdy, Lame, Weird	quirky, different	original
Fag, Queer	Male Homosexual	Gay
Slut, Pervert	Polygamist, or Promiscuous person	Playboy, Lady's Man
Smart where it doesn't count, brain, nerd	intellectual	smart, cerebral, genius
Take a crap or piss	excrete or defecate	go to the bathroom, poop, pee
Has issues, special ed (in a negative context), retarded	(intellectual disorders)	stupid, mentally incapacitated, special ed
fat, pig	obesity and overweight	chunky, heavy
Priss, Prude, Goody-two-shoes	(one who is overly virtuous)	Angel, Good Person, knows right from wrong

Related terms

While "dysphemism" or "malphemism" may be either offensive or merely humorously deprecating, "cacophemism" is usually deliberately offensive. The term "orthophemism" has been offered to refer to a neutral name or expression.^{[citation needed]}

Some humorous expressions can be either euphemistic or dysphemic depending on context because terms which can be dysphemic can also be affectionate. For example, pushing up daisies can be taken as either softer or harsher than died.

See also

• Euphemism
• Hyperbole
• Loaded language
• Metaphor
• Pejorative
• Satiric misspelling

Notes

• ^a dysphemism - from the Greek dys δύς "mis-" and pheme φήμη "reputation"
• ^b malphemism - from the Latin malus "bad"
• ^c cacophemism - from the Greek kakos κακός "bad"

Further reading

• Allan, Keith., Burridge, Kate. Euphemism & Dysphemism: Language Used As Shield and Weapon, Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN 0735102880.
• [[1]] "Euphemism and Dysphemism"