The Wit's Guide to Euphemism
Or, never say die
It’s been said that “euphemism” is a euphemism for lie, but maybe that’s just gilding the lily. Speaking of which, does gild the lily mean something other than applying gold leaf to a flowering plant? If you don’t want to know, check Urban Dictionary.
“For the sake of argument, then, one must never let a euphemism or a false consolation pass uncontested.”
― Christopher Hitchens
Traditional euphemisms were polite ways to avoid talking about sex, death, and toilet-adjacent activities. In Hugh Rawson’s excellent Dictionary of Euphemisms & Other Doubletalk — a book I recently liberated/borrowed without permission/commandeered from one of those hotels that displays serious literature1 bought by the yard as lobby decor — the author highlights “elimination” as a doubly euphemistic, describing “the expulsion of waste matter from the body as well as the wasting, or murder, of people.”
“Those extraordinary Australian euphemisms for vomiting — parking the tiger, yodelling on the lawn, the technicolor yawn, the liquid laugh.”
― Barry Humphries
The two key attributes of a euphemism are that it takes longer to say and it doesn’t last long. Intestinal fortitude is more of a mouthful than “guts,” and the crazy, insane, mental, and lunatic were all originally ways to avoid calling someone mad.
“Up to a point, Lord Copper.”
― In Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, a euphemism for “No.”
Today’s euphemisms are all about ripping you off, or as the Times recently called it, “premiumization.” Everything comes back to money, which is why sex workers on TikTok describe themselves as accountants.
Consider the professions that lean most heavily on euphemisms: Once it would have been obituary writers describing horrible people in coded adjectives, as explained in this New York Times obituary for the Daily Telegraph’s dead-beat supremo Hugh Massingberd:
Convivial: Habitually drunk.
Did not suffer fools gladly: Monstrously foul-tempered.
Gave colorful accounts of his exploits: A liar.
A man of simple tastes: A complete vulgarian.
A powerful negotiator: A bully.
Relished the cadences of the English language: An incorrigible windbag.
An uncompromisingly direct ladies’ man: A flasher.
Now, tracking that shift from cadavers to cash, the euphemism game is best played by real estate agents. As per a 2008 survey of U.S. realtors reporting on the chicanery of their colleagues, here’s how to decode the listings:
A cozy home: Too small for your big-screen TV.
Lots of possibilities: A real dump.
Move-in ready: Vacant.
Easy access to everywhere: Backing up to an expressway.
Very bright sunny home: Not a tree in sight.
Retro decor: Original avocado paisley vinyl floors.
Meticulously maintained: Never updated.
All of the above might suggest that euphemisms are — what’s the word? Sub-optimal? Misguided? Leave much to be desired? — bad. In fact, argued Quentin Crisp, they’re an essential part of good behaviour. We all have two sets of adjectives, he wrote in his 1984 book Manners from Heaven: “an alkaline list for those present, and an acidic list for absentees: those who are absent can be called ‘greedy’, those at the table have 'hearty appetites'; those absent are ‘opinionated’; those present ‘know their own minds’; absentees are ‘tyrannical’, present company are ‘born leaders’, and so on.”
Those who eschew euphemisms enjoy “kneecapping people with philosophical hammers,” Crisp writes. Much better to dispatch words like “secret agents on a delicate mission.”
“Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.”
― Quentin Crisp
The best all-purpose euphemism was uncovered by Catherine Storr in a 1985 survey of how British children talked about toileting. One correspondent shared how his family called the washroom the “euph” (pronounced “yoof” to rhyme with roof), owing to his wife’s childhood misunderstanding of why a guest did not want company when she “went outside” to the outhouse. It’s a euphemism, she was told. The guest is going to the euphemism. Or as my grandmother inexplicably called it, the biffy.
HONEY: I wonder if you could show me where the…I want to…put some powder on my nose.
GEORGE: Martha, won’t you show her where we keep the…euphemism?
― Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
The Premiumization of Wit
Hello to all the Zdarskyites who subscribed this week! If you want to send me money in exchange for rectangular pieces of cardstock printed with clever illustrations by spectacular artists and sent to you on a monthly-ish basis … you can! But you don’t have to!
Riposte Cards are the analog version of this digital newsletter, and Chip Zdarsky is the creator of Riposte Card No. 2, arriving in your mailbox in April. It looks like this:
Here’s a bit more from the man who calls himself Chip:
What's your go-to item in a well-stocked stationery store?
all the money in the register. easy does it and no one gets hurt.Where do you go for inspiration and/or information?
I go down to a rocky beach near my house when the wind is picking up. I love watching the clouds moving quickly across the sky and the feel of the salt air. And then I check twitter for inspiration if I can still get a signal.Is there one joke, witticism, or aphorism you live by?
keep your friends close but your enemies closer so you can grab them while your friend plunges the knife into their bellyWhat's the best thing to put on toast?
one gold barWhat work are you most proud of, and how can people support it?
I’ve never been proud of my work but I write and draw a comic called PUBLIC DOMAIN from Image Comics. The first collection is available everywhere! Too many places, really.
Public Domain, a comic book about comic books about comic books, works on all the levels, even the mezzanine. More about that here:
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“Perched on the loftiest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our own behind.”
— Michel de Montaigne
Every week I rely on you to point me in a direction. Sometimes I gently nudge you toward the correct topic. Other weeks I throw up my hands, hoping they’ll land somewhere witty. This is one of those weeks.
There’s no way to sugarcoat the fact that this was Get Wit Quick No. 195. Did you know that nepotism derives from the word nephew, a euphemism once used by popes to mean “son I can’t acknowledge,” as explained in McKinley Valentine’s excellent newsletter The Whippet? My book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting was a phenomenal success, up to a point. Touching the ❤️ below is exactly what it sounds like.
Nabokov defined “serious literature” as a euphemism for “the hollow profundity and the ever-welcome commonplace.” Wink wink.