One of the wonderful things about language is the vast array of choices you are presented with to convey your message, all of them effectively meaning the same thing, but presenting that meaning in different ways. Even leaving aside intonation (try saying the phrase ‘I did not say he beat his wife’ and emphasising one word in the phrase, you can convey seven different messages with little effort) there are so many ways to convey subtly different messages just in your selection of words.
I’m not talking about wrong words (For all intensive purposes, this can be where somebody has supposively chosen the wrong words all together, but also when the word choice leads to an ambiguous meaning; Dr Jones has been responsible for all the babies born in the district for the last 20 years.) I’m talking about the bewildering variety of right words that are available.
For example I could invite you to a cocktail party, a reception or after work drinks and mean the same thing each time. The words I choose to describe my après work soirée will tell you something about my expectations and thereby (hopefully) align yours with mine. The event itself might be at a nearby bar with a dozen or so people attending, but the word I choose to describe it will tell you something more about it automatically. It will also tell you something about me. My point in all this being that the thing being described is the same each time, only the word being used is different.
The more personal and intimate the situation, the greater the array of words available. For example the variety of words that can be used to described bodily functions is truly remarkable. I can recall being about eight or nine years old and going on a scout camp. My father had come along to help out and after they had put up the tents, my father said to the scout master (an irascible but highly practical chap who was known to all as ‘Buck’) that he was “going to see a man about a dog”. I was convinced that this was about my dog as I knew that my father was not fond of my dog and I worried about this ‘man’ that my father had gone to see about him. It was only much later that I realised that “to see a man about a dog” is simply an Australianism for “go to the toilet”
On those occasions when it is necessary to refer to bodily excrements, or to the act of excreting, the terms available will vary according to the setting. At the pub, I might mention that “I’m going to have a slash” but in a business setting I will refer to the facilities themselves, perhaps asking for “the gents” or “the bathroom”. It would be a rare and slightly odd person that said “I will go to urinate now” or “I would like to defecate.” Those words might be used in the doctor's office, but otherwise would only appear for comedic purposes.
For that matter, when was the last time you said “I want to go to the toilet” or even “where’s the toilet”? For native English speakers, it’s generally only said in childhood, with adults adopting various euphemisms depending on context. Most folks will have their own euphemism for the toilet room, varying from the vague; “the smallest room” to the explicit “the shitter”, but rarely will a native English speaker say simply “I want to go to the toilet”.
The curious thing about toilets is that there seems never to have been an actual word for that small room, instead we have always used a euphemism and, as the euphemism became less euphemistic over time, we developed euphemisms for the euphemism.
This process, known as the euphemism treadmill, sees us adopt a new euphemism as the old euphemism becomes more familiar. The word ‘toilet’ for example is actually a euphemism that was developed to replace the older euphemisms of ‘house-of-office’ and ‘privy’. The OED tells me that the word toilet derives from the French word toilette, which referred to the small towel placed over ones shoulder during hairdressing. Thus the word was used for the act of dressing oneself, a private activity, and thereby become a code word for other activities done in private. We still use it in that sense for toiletries and eau de toilette, a phrase that will never be translated to English for marketing purposes. We see a similar approach to describing the loo when ladies tell us they are “powdering their nose”.
Another area where euphemisms run the treadmill is in the area of human abilities. The words idiot, moron and imbecile for example were originally euphemisms for persons with varying intellectual abilities. Based on IQ tests, a person with a score of 50-69 would be classified as a moron, 20-49 is an imbecile and less than 20 was classified as an idiot. Over time these words entered our everyday language and came to be seen as insulting so they were replaced with the phrase ‘mental retardation’ which could be classified as mild, moderate or severe. Of course since that time the word retardation has become insulting and so now we just call them developers (hello Belgians).
There is a move now that the description should recognise the person rather than labelling the person. For example the politically correct will insist on “people with intellectual disability” rather than “intellectually disabled people”. I’m not sure that it makes a great deal of difference, but the theory is that the first phrasing recognises the person whereas the second phrasing recognises the disease. My personal opinion is that the first phrasing is more clumsy and therefore will take longer to become a schoolyard taunt.
Anything using the word “retardation” is unacceptable as is anything using the word "spastic". It’s unfortunate, because the word spastic, derived from the Greek word σπαστικός (spastikos meaning “drawing in” or “absorbing”), was originally intended as a more polite terminology for those suffering from cerebral palsy. The resultant change has led to the charity “The Spastic Society” being renamed as “Scope” and the “Spastic Centre” becoming the “Cerebral Palsy Alliance”. This fits with my theory that clumsy phrasing has been adopted deliberately to avoid schoolyard usage. I can often remember someone clumsy being called a “spastic” but I doubt very much that “member of the cerebral palsy alliance” would catch on in the same way. Equally, I doubt that Tiger Woods will ever get in trouble for calling himself that name.
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