Talk:Euphemism

"Profanity itself" section

In this section, an additional example might be Gore Vidal's book Myron, where he replaced specific sexual terms with the names of the US Supreme Court Justices who had voted to censor certain writings they thought 'pornographic', maybe? Seems a rather unique form of euphemism.

Also, the practice in Victorian days of leaving 'questionable' passages in Classical texts untranslated (in Latin) might be similar. (I do see that this article is approaching the level of 'too many examples', these seem to be slightly different from those currently in the article.) Thoughts? T-bonham (talk) 02:44, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

American military euphemisms

The statement that "armies talk of "neutralising" or "clearing" enemy combatants, which means to kill them" is not entirely correct. Firstly the use of euphemisms for deaths or torture are primarily American. Secondly whilst neutralizing the enemy may be seen by the media as a euphemism for killing, it is actually not a euphemism at all. To neutralize a threat means precisely that. "Clearing enemy combatants" is not a term that is widely used - in fact I have never heard it.Royalcourtier (talk) 08:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree. "Neutralizing" CAN mean killing, but not always. If the enemy surrenders or is merely wounded to the point of presenting no resistance, that does not mean they will then be summarily executed. 72.200.151.13 (talk) 22:33, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Or if they're caught in a snare. Or floating in a bubble. Probably not so common offscreen. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:41, February 7, 2015 (UTC)

Others

Hmm..under the section "Others", not sure if "challenged" is a euphemism. Some of these expressions, involving the use of the word "challenged", may have fallen off the euphemism treadmill and become offensive. Aspaa (talk) 00:48, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Notes of Frequency

There is a lot of notes on frequency of usage, but they are uncited, and perhaps very subjective. 67.175.197.150 (talk) 00:18, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Climate change?

Thanks to the editor Manul who added climate change/global warming to the list--because that editor footnoted the term. The source does indeed call climate change a euphamism for global warming. However, I think the source is wrong. The huge snowstorms in Boston this winter for instance, are said to be a result of warmer Atlantic ocean water vapor, meeting cold air pulled down by changing wind patterns, here. So the "warming" causes blizzards. Climate change is a better description than warming, not a euphamism. But I am leaving it in for now becuase of the heartening and commendable decision to footnote.

James Herriot said this?

There's a statement in here saying, "for example the author James Herriot recorded that he ran into a difficulty when, talking to an animal's owner, he wanted to refer to "putting (the animal) to sleep" literally, i.e. anaesthetising it for a while.[citation needed]". I've read all of Herriot's books and the biography by his son and have not come across this assertion at all. Where did you find it? It says "citation needed" and it does need one in order to keep this information in the article. Otherwise, it is NOT VERIFIABLE and should be removed. Why does Wikipedia even allow statements like this in an article when it has not been verified and is probably NOT TRUE?