Good words/Bad deeds

A euphemism, derived from the Greek root eu meaning good, is a nice word for an unpleasant concept.  In itself there is nothing wrong with that just as there is nothing improper to say good words, a eulogy, at a funeral, even if the person buried was a complete scoundrel.  If people describe their relatives as large instead of fat, it expresses sensitivity.  To call the person for whom the eulogy is being delivered the deceased instead of the dead person or the corpse adds a layer of formality that is needed on such an occasion.

However, some euphemisms are slippery linguistic traps potentially to awful acts.  To paraphrase Hannah Arendt in With Eichmann in Jerusalem, the mere act of calling the holocaust the Final Solution allowed ordinary people to commit evil acts.  Sometimes, you have to call a spade a spade.

Some examples of improper, in my opinion, embellishment include the term armed conflict for war.  The fight in Korea (1950 – present) is a war, whether or not Congress declared it, with thousands of casualties on both sides.  Ethnic cleansing is not like cleaning your house; it is genocide and a crime against humanity. Non-consensual sex is sweet-sounding word for rape, which is an ugly and reprehensible crime of violence.  Wanting to kill the Israelis means you want to kill Jews. On the lighter side, being height-challenged adds a sense of ridiculous to the already less than wonderful feeling of being short.  On the same level, having extra face does not take away from the fact that the person is bald, which may make him more or less attractive, but only adds linguistic absurdity.

So, exercise proper judgment when avoiding direct language.  It is okay to save the feelings of your loved ones, but being politically correct could lead to historically wrong behavior.

The Important Room

A euphemism is a nice word for a concept that society does not want to talk about openly, even if it must.  Examples of this are dying, often known as passing away, among others (cf. Monty Python’s Dead Parrot routine for the best exposition on the subject), cancer, otherwise known as a terminal disease, and sex with its hundreds of synonyms.

One peculiar area where most societies prefer to shade the truth a bit is that room in the house or outside of it where people carry out those important bodily functions sometimes known mathematically as 1 and 2 or dimensionally as big and small.  In English, it can be called a restroom, where I suppose some people actually rest, a loo, derived from an old French term, a WC, standing for water closet, which at least is always present in the room, a toilet, a word emphasizing the clean afterwards of the experience, the bathroom, which often does not include a bath especially in small apartments, and the ladies and mens room for restaurant, a possibly justified euphemism.  I would agree that it is much more elegant to ask the waiter where the ladies room is as compared to ask where to go pee.

French shares la toilette, la salle de bain, and WC with the English.  However, it adds the charming “le petit coin” meaning the small corner.   Given the size of many if not most French toilettes, the description is precise in terms of area if not purpose. 

Hebrew has its own terms:   השירותים (hashirutim) meaning “the services”; בית שימוש (beit shimush) literally signifying “the house of use”; and finally המקום החשוב (hamakom hahashuv), which can be translated as “the important place.”  The latter may not be specific in function, but it is accurate in terms of status. 

So, I will end this post to allow you to go to, you know, the important place.