How Euphemisms Embellish and Enrich a Tongue
By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
13 February 2026
Ji chahta hai ki ji bhar ke gaaliyaan doon use
Tahzeeb ne magar gaaliyon ki shiddat ghata dee
Anon
(I feel like abusing the person to my heart's content / But the civilized behaviour has softened the intensity of imprecations and expletives)
'Refined conversation is nothing but use of euphemisms,' whoever said this, must have been a great conversationalist. If slangs trivialise a language, intelligent use of euphemisms adds lustre to it. Just compare the two sentences: 'He's dead' and 'He's no more' or 'He has passed away'. Second and third expressions sound far better and are devoid of the hammering harshness of the first expression: 'He's dead'. Euphemisms take away the rudeness and crudeness of a sentence and sentiment. They're the veritable shock-absorbers of a language. Social etiquette demands that one must refrain from using words and expressions that are disconcerting to the collective sensibilities. A language mirrors the whole society and reflects all its ethos. Euphemisms become parts of a rudimentary sub-language when it starts evolving and blossoming into a full-fledged language. All highly sophisticated languages in the world are full of euphemisms.
The French Literary Society at Sorbonne, Paris decided way back in 1868, not to have a single embarrassing word for death, sex and murder. Though French still has plain words about death, sex and murder, it's the use of euphemisms, French people are known for. Persian and French being feminine languages, have minimum numbers of cuss words and the users of these languages are most adept at using euphemisms. It was the French influence on English that euphemisms came into the latter language. Victorian society, roughly 1840-1900, was culturally, morally and linguistically uber-sensitive. The great Victorian poet and critic, Dr Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), wrote that the Victorian Era almost dispensed with the word 'sex' and resorted to a number of mild expressions to denote physical proximity. When Thomas Hardy, the last of the Victorians and the first of the modernists, first heard the term, 'love-making', his reaction was: 'Why on earth the word 'sex' is still in the dictionary and in the English language? Do away with it because love-making sounds so lovely. ' In the diary of Marcel Proust', edited by Davon Blings and Rinchen Laster, I came across a very beautiful euphemistic expression even for love-making: ' In an intense moment, the two became one.' 'Ek jaan, do qaalib' (one soul, two bodies in Urdu). There's no umbrageous crudity and no mention of the obvious openness of the very 'act', yet the expression drives home the point so beautifully and succinctly.
A suave, dignified and also sensitive true-blue English boss will never say that he has fired his employee or ousted him/her. Rather, he'll say, ' The person has been relieved.' It's like in Urdu, 'Aap kal se aane ki zahmat na karein' (please, don't trouble yourself from tomorrow) to suggest that he has been given the pink-slip (yet another euphemism for the termination). Even 'golden handshake' connotes the same, albeit in a subtle manner. By the way, Urdu illustrates the use of euphemisms (called Husn-e-tabeer or Khush Kalami) most emphatically. 'A language, peppered with puns and euphemisms, not only shows the speaker's linguistic command, it also reveals his/ her class, pedigree, cultural and social background as well as his/ her witticism,' Edward Sapir opined. This is very true. If you say, 'Have a 'swell' time', it has a contextual connotation having a mixed metaphor and an amalgam of a pun and euphemism, because 'swell' is used in love-making as well as in the sense of gaiety. But at times, the over intelligent and over poetic euphemisms also degenerate into slangs. A speaker should always be very careful not to let this happen. For example, the US campus expression 'parallel parking' for making out (yet another euphemism!) is a confused euphemism. So is John Updike’s: I want to melt my candle in the warmth of your alcove! What will you say? Or, ' Remove the flimsy curtain of clouds from your moons' (British poet Philip Larkins to his unnamed lady-friend). There indeed is a chance of erotically using euphemisms and (deliberately) making them more explicit than the straightforward utterances. Nonetheless, euphemisms enhance the quality of a language and enrich it.
People invent new words for emotionally charged referents, but soon the euphemism becomes tainted by association, and a new word must be found, which soon acquires its own connotations, and so on. Water closet becomes toilet (originally a term for any kind of body care, as in toilet kit and toilet water), which becomes bathroom, which becomes restroom, which becomes lavatory. Undertaker changes to mortician, which changes to funeral director...
"The euphemism treadmill shows that concepts, not words, are primary in people's minds. Give a concept a new name, and the name becomes colored by the concept; the concept does not become freshened by the name, at least not for long. Names for minorities will continue to change as long as people have negative attitudes toward them. We will know that we have achieved mutual respect when the names stay put." (Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Viking Penguin, 2002)
- "Any euphemism ceases to be euphemistic after a time and the true meaning begins to show through. It's a losing game, but we keep on trying." (Joseph Wood Krutch, If You Don't Mind My Saying So, 1964).
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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/euphemism-embellish-enrich-tongue-/d/138838
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