Today I read this phrase: "non-negotiable early retirement". I liked it. Is that a euphemism or a circumlocution for "fired"? I am also fond of "normal involuntary attrition". Whichever, I have always liked them.
"Trans-cranial high-velocity frontal lobotomy" is one of my favorites. (For the nonviolent, this is a bullet in the head). Though I don't have occasion to use it much. Most of my circumlocutions at this moment are efforts to prevent my children from knowing what I am talking about. They usually figure it out anyway, but I suppose I am adding to theeir vocabulary.
Medical euphemisms are nice: did you know that a bag of ice shows up on a hospital bill as "thermal therapy"? And of course the State of Georgia called evolution "biological changes over time". And the killing of hundreds of cattle as a measure against Mad Cow Disease got called "depopulation" of the bull calf operation. Sustainable utilization turns out to mean plundering the environment without really worrying about it. And there are takeout restaurants here which adertise a 10% discount for picking up your food (this menas there is a 10% charge for delivery). I saw a new term for paper magazines where the publication also comes out online: they are called "dead tree editions".
The National Federation for the Blind went on a crusade once to get people to keep using the word "blind" in place of hard of seeing, visually challenged, sightless, visually impaired, and the like.
Anybody else got any favorites?
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1 comment:
Jeannine:
My favorite from Superfund is "natural attenuation". That means we ain't gonna do nothing but monitor it and hope it goes away.
Dad
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