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Euphemisms in your language | ||
Tags: Euphemisms | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7011 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 41 of 53 05 May 2008 at 8:21am | IP Logged | ||
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For English, anyway, there are number of dictionaries of euphemisms. I was in a bookstore browsing and couldn't pull myself away from "The Oxford Dictionary of Euphemisms". I wouldn't be surprised if there were similar dictionaries for other languages.
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| wordwizard Diglot Newbie Canada none Joined 6390 days ago 14 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 42 of 53 07 May 2008 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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English is such a mushmouth language that sometimes it is hard to recognize a euphemism for what it is until you see the word in another language. One example is "impotent" which means "unable to do something" and also has a more specific sexual meaning. The German word translates literally as " lame in the loins". German is so direct sometimes that it makes me laugh - the contrast between the softened English term and the direct German tern catches one by surprise.
It is interesting to watch euphemisms developing. "Anorexia" is a word that has been in ordinary conversation for only a few decades. In the 1970s and even 80s only doctors would talk about anorexia. It is also a pretty sounding word that disguises the reality of the condition quite effectively. The usual German expression translates as "thin addiction". So yet again the English speakers have taken up a mushmouth term that softens reality, and the German speakers have taken up a very direct, straightforward term. Interesting. I had a German teacher who said she had to tone herself down when speaking in English, as a German directness is considered offputting, even alarming in English. I rather enjoy the directness, though sometimes, as I said, it makes me laugh. Edited by wordwizard on 07 May 2008 at 3:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6080 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 43 of 53 08 May 2008 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Over the last few years loads of words have been changed in English
Charman - Chairperson Manhole - Personhole Fat - Overwieight Black - Coloured Blackboard - Chalkboard Blackie day (celebration in my local villiage, but it has nothing to do with Black people) - Midsummer celebrations Invalids - Disabled TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lost Cause Newbie United States Joined 5960 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew | Message 44 of 53 01 August 2008 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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^
I know in the American South (where I'm from) if you use the word "colored" to describe a black person, it's considered offensive. To black people, the word "colored" harkens back to the days of Jim Crow and segregation, so it's considered taboo. In the South, "black" or "African-American" are acceptable. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7015 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 45 of 53 01 August 2008 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not a big fan of political correctness. Sometimes a spade is just a spade.
In any case, most of them are "whiteboards" now (to be used with non-permanent markers) since the days of chalk are numbered. I used to like writing in chalk on my blackboard. A whiteboard marker squeaks too much and your hands are too clean after writing a nice long derivation. In fact, even the whiteboard is nearly obsolete since the introduction of interactive boards which can be connected to a computer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Calvino Diglot Groupie Sweden sammafllod.wordpress Joined 5966 days ago 65 posts - 66 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: French, Spanish, German | Message 46 of 53 08 August 2008 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I tried to think of Swedish PC euphemisms, but I couldn't bring any to mind. I guess we suck at political correctness.
Oh yeah, here's a funny one. There's a kind of confection that is popular in Sweden, made from butter, oats, sugar and cacao. It has traditionally been known as a "negerboll" (that's literally "n***** ball"!), but last year there was a public outcry and a lot of cafés and such decided to change the name to "oats ball" or something similarly inoffensive. The fun thing is that a lot of people got genuinely upset by this seemingly reasonable change. Another one: the dialect spoken by young second- and third generation immigrants living in areas with a high immigrant population has alternately been called "invandrarsvenska" (immigrant Swedish), "Rinkebysvenska" or "Rosengårdssvenska" (from the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby and the Malmö district of Rosengård, respectively) and the quite vulgar "blattesvenska" (from "blatte", a derogatory term for an immigrant from the middle east). Recently, however, the term "nysvenska" ("new Swedish") has been pushed by opinion groups. I think it's rather nice, with its Orwellian connotations. The academic term, meanwhile, is the quite clumsy "multietniskt ungdomsspråk" ("multi-ethnic youth language"). Edited by Calvino on 09 August 2008 at 11:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Autarkis Triglot Groupie Switzerland twitter.com/Autarkis Joined 5952 days ago 95 posts - 106 votes 4 sounds Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Italian | Message 47 of 53 10 August 2008 at 5:45am | IP Logged | ||
Hello, fellow Swiss! :) Actually, I can see they put him in used in English easily. In (Swiss) German, which is a specific dialect of German spoken in Switzerland, Randständige (people standing on the brink) is used to describe bums, losers, homeless, drug users and unemployed people all in one term. I don't know about it, it's always useful to have terms that encompass other terms, but this one could be more sincere. There's also some euphemisms for curses ... many people use Gopferdechel (go - unintelligible - cap) instead of Gott verdamm mich (god damn). Some use Schei...benkleister (window glue) instead of Scheisse (shit). Other euphemisms include die Tage haben (having the/your days) for menstruation. Of course, all things sexual have a large number of euphemisms, I don't know if I'm up to putting that stuff here ... ;) Amazingly to me, handicapped people are just now being called that, before they were Behinderte (hindered people), which has exactly the same meaning. And even more interestingly, there's an offical campaign Wir lassen uns nicht behindern (We we won't get hindered) which refreshingly ignores the euphemism "Handicap" which I think politicians brought up. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Espling Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 5946 days ago 17 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Japanese, German | Message 48 of 53 15 August 2008 at 12:34am | IP Logged | ||
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On the swedish "negerbollar mentioned earlier, I would think that chocolate balls would be the more normal euphemism.
Otherwise swedish is quite free of the most horrible of euphemisms although still harbouring some quite interesting euphemism like words that are just stupid. One is the word "islamist". The swedish word for muslim is, well... "muslim", but the word "islamist" is an intellectually challenged term used by newspapers to describe "a person who commits terrorist acts in the name of Islam". Phrases like ethnical minority and such are of course present, but they would be nothing new to the English speaker. One that bothers me though is that they replace "bög"(gay) and "lesbisk"(lesbian) with "person med alternativ sexuell orientering"(person with an alternative sexual orientation). I mean, wouldn't homosexual and bisexual be enough? Edited by Espling on 15 August 2008 at 12:35am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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