英语委婉语之探究

Abstract::This paper was written as a class term paper in 1998, while the writer was doing graduate study in TESL at Silliman University, Philippines. In this paper the writer presents a study on English euphemism from perspectives of earlier writers so as to provide a fairly full study for those who conduct the area of English euphemism.

Key words: Study; English Euphemism; Perspectives of Earlier Writers

What’s euphemism? According to the definition of Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1978 ), euphemism is the use of a pleasanter, less direct name for something thought to be unpleasant. Euphemism is the substitution of a pleasant term for a blunt one---telling it like it isn’t ( editor of Time ). The term comes from the Greek eu, meaning “ well” or “sounding good”, and pheme “ speech”.

A British gets up from the table, explaining that he has to go to the cloakroom; a young woman announces that she is enceinte; an undertaker ( or mortician ) asks delicately where to ship the loved one. These are euphemisms---mild, agreeable, or roundabout words used in place of coarse, painful, of offensive ones ( Hugh, 1981).

People use euphemisms when they want to avoid talking directly or carefully disguised when they speak about subjects that make them uncomfortable. They conceal the things people fear the most---death, disease, the supernatural. They cover up the facts of life--- of sex and reproduction and excretion. Hence elaborate phrases are to be found among many types of people, civilized and uncivilized, to avoid use of the simple word “die”. They use euphemisms like passing on or passing away or being taken away.In The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford examines the semantic environment of the funeral industry and finds:

A whole new terminology, as ornately shoddy as the satin rayon casket liner, has been invented by the funeral industry to replace the direct and serviceable vocabulary of former times. Undertaker has been supplanted by “ funeral director” or “ mortician.” ( Even the classified section of the telephone directory gives recognition to this; in its pages you will find “ Undertakers---see Funeral Directors.”) Coffins are “caskets”; hearses are“ coaches” or “ professional cars”; flowers are “ floral tributes”; corpses generally are “ loved ones,” but mortuary etiquette dictates that a specific corpse be referred to by name only---as “Mr. Jones”; cremated ashes are “remains.” Euphemisms such as “ slumber room,” “ reposing room,” and “ calcination---the kindlier heat”abound in the funeral business.

In every language, there seem to be certain “ unmentionables”---words dealing with excretion and sex. Barbara Lawrence wrote an article “ Four Letter Words Can Hurt You”. She defines “ obscenity” and explains why she finds the obscene language some students use to be “ implicitly sadistic or denigrating to women”. Why indeed should one group of words describing human functions and human organs be acceptable in ordinary conversation and another, describing presumably the same organs and functions, be tabooed--- in fact, that some of these words still cannot appear in print in many parts of the English-speaking world! The best known of the tabooed sexual verbs, for example, comes from the German ficken, meaning “ to strike”; combined, according to Partridge’s etymological dictionary Origins, with the Latin sexual verb futuere. It is one of what etymologists sometimes call “ the sadistic group of words for the man’s part in copulation.” In the essay “ Verbal Taboo” S. I. Hayakawa says:

Words having to do with anatomy and sex---and words even vaguely suggesting anatomical or sexual matters---have, especially in American culture, remarkable…connotations. Ladies of the nineteenth century could not bring themselves to say “ breast” or “ leg” ---not even of chicken---so that the terms “ white meat” and “dark meat” were substituted.

You can find many euphemistic words or expressions having to do with anatomy like abdomen for belly, afterpart for ass, bosom for breast, limb for leg, white meat for breast ( of a chicken ),and so on; words and expressions having to do with sexual topics like copulate (copulation), criminal conversation, carnal connection, the dirty deed, etc. I list some elaborate explanations which related with sex from the A Dictionary of Euphemisms & Other Doubletalk .Come: To experience sexual orgasm. Now the most common nonclinical term, “come” started out as a euphemism, being essentially a bland, generalized allusion to a specific, intense event. Conversation: Sexual intercourse. The euphemism goes back always, e.g.The men hath conversacyon with the wymen, who that they ben or who they fyrst mete ( First English Book on America, ca. 1511 ). Today, the term usually is reserved for conversations that shouldn’t have taken place. Connection: the euphemistic “ connection “is by no means limited to the so-called civilized nations. Just as prudish are the Nupe, of West Africa: “ Nupe lacks any native ‘connect’( Peter Farb, Word Play: What Happens When People Talk, 1974 ). A euphemism is a supposedly pleasant or higher-status term that is used in place of a blunt or lower-status term. ( Charles N. Chadbourn ).

The editors of Time reported not so long ago on an attempt in Germany to merchandise and make more respectable the “ oldest profession in the world.” Large, comfortable hotels used for prostitution are now called “ Eros-centers.” And the girls who work in them are called “ Erostesses.” This amusing use of euphemisms is only one more in a long history of attempts by people to elevate themselves by retitling their occupations.

“ Prostitute” comes from the Latin pro ( forward), plus statuere ( to set up or to the place ) and so translates as “ to expose publicly” or “ to offer for sale.” The Latinate word came into English as a euphemism for the blunt English one. In the nineteenth century, Noah Webster changed “ whore” to “prostitute” ( or “lewd woman”). Some occupational euphemisms having to do with this meaning are B-girl, call girl and V-girl, Victory girl, etc. B-girl : some people say the “ B” stands for “bar”; others think it refers to “ putting the bee “ on someone to buy a drink, and still others believe it means “bad”. Or it could even stand for all three combined, since B-girls are prostitutes or floozies who congregate in bars, where they often receive commissions on the drinks they persuade customers to buy. “I seem to meet nothing but B-girls out here’ (BuddSchulberg What Makes Sammy Run?,1941) Call girl: A whore; specifically, one who makes connections with her customers by phone. Compared to the ordinary WORKING GIRL of the street, the call girl generally leads a better, safer life. It is commonly assumed that the “call” in “call girl” represents Alezander Grakam Bell’s contribution to the world’s oldest profession, but this probably isn’t right, although the telephone is involved. Instead, the term apparently comes from the older call house, a brothel, or HOUSE, in which “girls” are “on call”.

If euphemisms are a way of covering up something ugly, then occupational euphemisms indicate workers’ attitudes toward their jobs ( Studs Terbel ). Euphemisms can be divided into two general types---positive and negative. The positive ones inflate and magnify, making the euphemized items seem altogether grander and more important than they really are. ( Rawson,1981). Positive euphemisms include the many fancy occupational titles , which salve the ego of workers by elevating their job status: custodian for janitor ( itself a euphemism for caretaker ), help for servant ( itself an old euphemism for slave ), booker and working girl for whore, mortician for undertaker, aisle manager for floor-walker, beautician for hairdresser, exterminating engineer for rat-catcher, and so forth. The negative euphemisms deflate and diminish. They are defensive in nature, offsetting the power of tabooed terms and otherwise eradicating from the language everything that people prefer not to deal with directly. Negative, defensive euphemisms are extremely ancient. In many cultures, it is forbidden to pronounce the generalized Devil, the names of the dead, and of animals that hunted or feared, may also be euphemized this way. According to The World Book Encyclopedia, taboo is am action, object, person, or place forbidden by law or culture. The word taboo comes from the polynesian word tapu, or tabu, which means something sacred, special, dangerous, or unclean. Many societies believe that people who go to a taboo place or touch a taboo object will suffer serious injury. People in many parts of the world avoid taboos. Until the 1900’s, for example, Australian Aborigines must not say the name of a dead person aloud. “Speak of the Devil and he appears,” so the safest policy is to use another name, usually a flattering, euphemistic one, in place of the supernatural being’s true name. The bear is called grandfather by many peoples and the tiger is alluded to as the striped one, etc. Extraordinary collections of euphemisms have formed around some topics over the years as a result of the continual creation of new terms, and it seems safe to say that the sizes these collections reflect the strength of the underlying taboos ( Rawson, 1981 ). The euphemism stands for “something else,” and everyone pretends that the “something else” doesn’t exist. It is the essentially nature of euphemisms that makes them so attractive to those people who have something to hide, who don’t want to say what they are thinking, and who find it convenient to lie about what they are doing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

[1]Perspectives on Language. Edited by John A. Ry-

cenga & Joseph Schwart. 1963. New York: The Ronald Press Company.

[2] A Dictionary of Euphemisms & Other Doubletalk. Hugh Rawson . 1981. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.

[3]“Telling It Like It Isn’t,” Time ( September 19,

1969 ).TheWeekly Newsmagazine; Copyright Time Inc.

祝慧敏:上海工商外国语学院英语系。