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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Oh Scissors.

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Speaker 1: It's Saturday. Time to go into the vault. This is

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Speaker 1: for a classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind

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Speaker 1: from December of It's our episode on euphemisms. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is a really really neat one and if you haven't

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Speaker 1: heard this episode, uh, there's a lot more to it

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Speaker 1: than you might think. There's this drift that occurs, so

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Speaker 1: you know, obviously a euphemism is rolled out. Initially it's

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Speaker 1: kind of like a you know, a replacement for a

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Speaker 1: dirtier word or a less proper word. But then over

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Speaker 1: time the euphemism itself becomes the dirty word and and

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Speaker 1: new words have to have to be brought in to

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Speaker 1: replace it. Uh. So it's yeah, there's there's a lot

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Speaker 1: to unpack in this episode, and I think everyone can

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Speaker 1: relate to it. How come oh scissors never became super dirty? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: One that we use in my household a lot, and

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Speaker 1: I forget who I stole this from or picked it

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Speaker 1: up from, is to just use the word cuss uh

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Speaker 1: in place of an actual cuss word. So you know,

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Speaker 1: I'll talk to the boy about how it's just hot

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Speaker 1: as a cuss out here, or you know, stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: which which is silly, but then it also runs so cute, cute,

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Speaker 1: but then it runs the risk in the long term

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Speaker 1: of like cuss will then absorb all of the need

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Speaker 1: negative energy and become like the foul word. Um so, uh,

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Speaker 1: that's the world we live in, all right, let's dive

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Speaker 1: right the cuss in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your

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Speaker 1: Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I want to talk

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Speaker 1: about my favorite scene in the movie fram Stoker's Dracula,

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Speaker 1: directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Okay, well, there's never a

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Speaker 1: bad time to discuss, uh that, that particular interpretation of Dracula.

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Speaker 1: It is a great one, isn't it. It's like horrible,

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Speaker 1: but it's also great. It has some wonderful design in it.

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Speaker 1: I love the suit of armor, oh yeah, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I love some of the painted backdrops and stuff. But

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Speaker 1: there's a great scene where so you know, the basic

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Speaker 1: story of Dracula, these characters are in I think late

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Speaker 1: Victorian England and Dracula. Count Dracula comes to England from

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Speaker 1: Transylvania and begins feeding on the locals in England. And uh,

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Speaker 1: there is the character Van Helsing, the Van vampire slayer

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Speaker 1: man of great Wisdom, and in the bram Stokers Dracula

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Speaker 1: France Ford coupla version he has played by Anthony Hopkins

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Speaker 1: in a wonderfully weird, hyperactive performance. Uh. And there's a

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Speaker 1: scene where the main character's friend Lucy has been turned

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Speaker 1: into a vampire by Count Dracula, and Van Helsing and

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Speaker 1: his associates have just come back from slaying the vampire

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Speaker 1: version of their friend Lucy, and the character Mina Harker

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Speaker 1: played in the movie by Win Ower writer she asks

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Speaker 1: how did Lucy die? Was she in great pain? And

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Speaker 1: Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing says, yes, she was in

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Speaker 1: great pain. Then we cut off our head, drove a

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Speaker 1: stake through her heart and then burned it. And then

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Speaker 1: she found peace. And I always loved that because of

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Speaker 1: the last line at the end there and then she

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Speaker 1: found peace. Yeah, everything else is thoroughly non euphemistic, pretty straightforward.

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Speaker 1: These are the steps we took to to tear her

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Speaker 1: corpse apart to to kill her her undead, unnatural life. Right,

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Speaker 1: but then you have to end it with a euphemism,

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Speaker 1: So they they have these terms ready at hand. She

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Speaker 1: found peace, she passed on, she went to a better place.

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Speaker 1: These are the the friendly terms for death. He could

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Speaker 1: have just finished as he began by saying and then

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Speaker 1: she died screaming, but instead he uses the euphemism, and

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Speaker 1: then she found peace. And it's a great contrast. It's

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Speaker 1: it's why it's such a wonderful comic, man, But it

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Speaker 1: makes you aware of the absurdity of the euphemisms that

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Speaker 1: we use in everyday language. Yeah, I feel like in

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Speaker 1: researching this episode, we both had to do a lot

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Speaker 1: of self examination regarding our own use of euphemisms. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know just how ubiquitous euphemistic language is. It's everywhere.

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Speaker 1: It's I bet it's half of all the talk you

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Speaker 1: do now. Of course, the concept of a euphemism is,

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Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with the word, it just means

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Speaker 1: using a friendlier or more acceptable term to express an

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Speaker 1: idea that for some reason is taboo or uncomfortable. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting thinking about it in terms of having a

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Speaker 1: four and a half year old in the house because

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Speaker 1: he he does not have a really a great use

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Speaker 1: of euphemisms. Yet when he's very blunt, right when he'll

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Speaker 1: be eating dinner and he'll say I need to go poop,

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Speaker 1: I'll be right back. He'll he'll even lay out a

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Speaker 1: detailed plan. I'm going to go poop and wash my

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Speaker 1: hands and I'm gonna come back and then I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: fish eater. And wouldn't it be great if we could

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Speaker 1: do that during dinner party? Yeah? No, No, Like if

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Speaker 1: an adult did that, you would just think they'd lost

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Speaker 1: their mind or just we're the most uncouth firson imaginable, right,

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Speaker 1: But but a child is completely free of this. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: we would use euphemism. We would say I'm need to

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Speaker 1: go use the restroom, I'm going to go make use

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Speaker 1: of the laboratory, or maybe we visit the water closet, yeah, like,

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Speaker 1: or even I'm going to step out. Yeah, I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna Well that that's a weird. I've never heard anyone

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Speaker 1: use that I'm going to step out, Like, what are

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Speaker 1: you going to do if you're gonna step out? I

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Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, obviously something you don't want to

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Speaker 1: talk about. Um. Yeah, I tend to fall back on

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go visit the restroom, or I'm gonna use

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Speaker 1: the rest room and I'll be right back visit like

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Speaker 1: you're gonna have some quality time. Well, I'm keeping it

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Speaker 1: vague as to what. I'm not going to give you

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Speaker 1: the particulars of what's going to happen. Maybe I'm just

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Speaker 1: washing my hands, maybe I need to blow my nose,

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Speaker 1: might just stare in the mirror without blinking. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say I'm gonna go poop and then

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Speaker 1: I will return. I bet there's a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: when you have a kid in the house that you

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Speaker 1: have to do euphemistically that you you're used to talking

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Speaker 1: more bluntly, maybe with your spouse or partner, but but

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Speaker 1: once a kid comes along, you can't say everything the

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Speaker 1: way you used to. Well, it's interesting. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of there's a lot of back and forth too with

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Speaker 1: kids regarding especially euphemisms regarding the human body, because some

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Speaker 1: parents will will fall into this habit of using like

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Speaker 1: cutes here less uh less accurate terminology for parts of

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Speaker 1: the body, particularly genitalia, which I always find creepy. When

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Speaker 1: I hear no offense to parents who do that. I'm

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Speaker 1: not actually judging you. I'm that's just my instinctual reaction

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Speaker 1: hearing like pp and stuff. It always sounds like, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we try not to do that in our house. I

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Speaker 1: mean that everyone everyone can, you know, do their own

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Speaker 1: thing by all means. But yeah, we try and say,

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Speaker 1: all right, enis testicles, um, et cetera. Because you know,

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Speaker 1: I feel it's important for them to have an accurate

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Speaker 1: understanding of their body and then to be able to

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Speaker 1: describe their body, uh seriously to say, you know a physician. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if they needed to talk to a doctor, they would

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Speaker 1: need the correct terms. Yeah. But but that's an area

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Speaker 1: where in parenting circles people kind of go on your

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Speaker 1: arguments on both sides. Do you do you ever find

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Speaker 1: yourself like wanting to curse in front of the child,

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Speaker 1: but you have to find another word? Oh yeah, all

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Speaker 1: the time. Sometimes I don't find that other word. Um uh.

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Speaker 1: This morning, even driving through traffic, and my son reminded me, said,

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Speaker 1: they can't hear you. I guess that other drivers cannot

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Speaker 1: hear me. That is a perceptive kid. Yeah, but but

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Speaker 1: I try, I do try and use certain euphemisms or

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Speaker 1: just it's almost easier for me to just come up

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Speaker 1: with a nonsense word, so referring to other drivers as

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Speaker 1: dumbledoors or calling them crab drivers or something like that.

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Speaker 1: Crab drivers. That's because they're kind of scuttling around back

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Speaker 1: and forth, side to side instead of going in straight lines.

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Speaker 1: Uh Like, I find that easier to do, because sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's difficult to make a euphemism stick, because if I'm

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Speaker 1: if I'm really irritated with another driver, my brain really

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Speaker 1: wants to use, uh, the the F word or or

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Speaker 1: the or the S word, or one of these more

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Speaker 1: actually profane words from a vocabulary. And there's something about

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Speaker 1: a watered down version of it just will not suit. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it seems to have a power, almost a magical power.

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Speaker 1: And I think maybe that goes back to some deeply

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Speaker 1: rooted part of the cursed tradition in our brains, where

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Speaker 1: you know, thousands of years ago, somebody issues a curse,

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Speaker 1: they think that that has power. I think it's actually

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Speaker 1: doing something. Yeah, the thing gang is not gonna not

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Speaker 1: gonna got not gonna do. It's not gonna suit. Fudge

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Speaker 1: is not gonna work. So euphemisms in our house. Uh,

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Speaker 1: my wife Rachel and I get a lot of enjoyment

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Speaker 1: out of talking about our dog in un euphemistic terms

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Speaker 1: when people normally would. So one example, when our dog's

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Speaker 1: legs and jaws are jerking in his sleep, you know

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Speaker 1: he's having a little doggie dreams. I think many dog

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Speaker 1: owners would be inclined to say, oh, he's dreaming about

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Speaker 1: chasing something, but we would say, oh, he's dreaming about killing,

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Speaker 1: which he is. He's definitely dreaming about killing little animals. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's that, that's true. Yeah, I guess I do

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Speaker 1: a certain amount of that with our our pet as well.

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Speaker 1: I'll give one more example though about about raising a

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Speaker 1: child and euphemisms, is that sometimes you still do not

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Speaker 1: succeed in really driving home the names for things, and

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Speaker 1: without the proper term, sometimes the like the children's name

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Speaker 1: for it is going to be totally even more unsuitable.

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Speaker 1: So I don't think I drove home properly. You know

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Speaker 1: what the anus is to my son, And so one

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Speaker 1: day we had some people guess to the house and

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Speaker 1: this is something he hadn't even met before. But he

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Speaker 1: walks outside, just got it from the nap, and he

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Speaker 1: proudly announces quote, uh, it itches where poop comes out

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Speaker 1: on my bum and uh, and I think, arguably, like this,

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Speaker 1: this is a more uncouth statement. Grantedies four and a half,

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Speaker 1: so nobody cares, but still it would be more accurate

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Speaker 1: to say my anus itches. Right. But in a way

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Speaker 1: what he said was euphemism. Really it's an anti euphemism,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get into that in a in a bit.

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Speaker 1: The the euphemism is actually cuter there in the situation

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Speaker 1: where a kid says it. If the kid had said anus,

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Speaker 1: that might have been weirder. Yeah, But if an adult

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Speaker 1: had said it itches on my bum where poop comes out,

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Speaker 1: then that, you know, you would call the authorities exactly. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So uh, let's zoom in on the concept of the

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Speaker 1: euphemism and try to figure out what it does, what

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Speaker 1: is its role in language apart from the obvious. Now,

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Speaker 1: we we did say that it's essentially a nice word.

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Speaker 1: It's a word that takes the place of a word that,

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Speaker 1: for some reason is is inappropriate offensive. Uh, something people

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Speaker 1: don't want to say or think about. Maybe that conjures

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Speaker 1: up too concreteive an image. Yeah, I mean, on the

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Speaker 1: surface of things, it's don't say that, say this, but

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Speaker 1: of course it's it's more than that. A euphemism has

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Speaker 1: the power to alter the meaning of the word, or

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Speaker 1: at least the spirit and tone of the word. Right.

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Speaker 1: It's like a black and white image versus a colorized image.

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Speaker 1: Euphemisms allow us to colorize our our linguistic choices to

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Speaker 1: a certain extent. And I think we can all think

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Speaker 1: of various examples where a euphemism simultaneously makes a word

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Speaker 1: less offensive and and yet creep here at the same time,

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Speaker 1: such as many of these genitalia euphemisms that we've been

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Speaker 1: discussing exactly Yeah pp hearing an adult say it, it's

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Speaker 1: creepy even rhymes. Yeah, I would say most genitalia euphemisms, uh,

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Speaker 1: kind of sound like that they have this this this

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Speaker 1: vibe of being at one point they're they're deflecting us

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Speaker 1: from the thing we're talking about, and yet colorize it

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Speaker 1: in a way that is is tasteful. Okay, So there

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Speaker 1: are a bunch of different ways that you can come

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Speaker 1: up with the euphemism, right like you you can put

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Speaker 1: it together in several ways. There's a word that people

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Speaker 1: have instinctually felt somehow they want to start avoiding saying,

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Speaker 1: but they still need the concept in everyday language. You

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Speaker 1: still have to be able to refer to the thing

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Speaker 1: the word refers to somehow, so you've got to come

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Speaker 1: up with a different word. So where do these different

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Speaker 1: words come from? Well, you can of course really go

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Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole figuring out what sort of euphemisms

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Speaker 1: are doing what. But here are some of the basic

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Speaker 1: classifications to consider. There's a term of foreign origin, okay,

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Speaker 1: like a dairy air or copulation urination. You're using a

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Speaker 1: more elegant and uh and in foreign term for what

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Speaker 1: you're talking about. In English, a lot of times the

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Speaker 1: euphemisms kind of come from Latin constructions more so than

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Speaker 1: from the Anglo Saxon constructions, where the the short straightforward

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Speaker 1: word sounds kind of rude and concrete, and that the

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Speaker 1: Latin origin word sounds more abstract and less like it

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Speaker 1: less it's less likely to conjure an image. Another example

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Speaker 1: is abbreviations, for instance S O B or food bar.

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Speaker 1: These are both examples where we we simply abbreviate a

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Speaker 1: a phrase that would otherwise be offensive to some right,

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Speaker 1: and I guess in most cases you would still consider

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Speaker 1: the abbreviation somewhat offensive, but maybe less so you uh,

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Speaker 1: the one I like you made the note of this,

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Speaker 1: but I like the idea of using really vague abstractions

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Speaker 1: such as doing it, doing it or um. The source

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Speaker 1: I was looking at mentioned like situation, like just referring

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Speaker 1: to the such and such situation. One that always has

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Speaker 1: annoyed me is the situation the situation room? Like what

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Speaker 1: what situation is the room for? Is it a war room?

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Speaker 1: Because if it's a war room, let's call it a

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Speaker 1: war room. Is it an emergency room? Is it let's

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Speaker 1: let's call it what it is? The situation room could

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Speaker 1: be about anything, okay. There would also be the concept

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Speaker 1: of just saying that you don't want to say a thing,

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Speaker 1: essentially like unmentionables. Yes, he who should not be named

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Speaker 1: right for Lord Voldemort. Uh. And then there of course

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Speaker 1: mispronunciations like freaking or god. I guess is gosh darn it?

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Speaker 1: One is replacing God with gosh? Does that work? I

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Speaker 1: guess it could be like gold gold darn't gold? Aren't it?

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Speaker 1: That would be one? Yeah? And then their plays on abbreviation,

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Speaker 1: which I really hadn't thought much of, but bull roar

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Speaker 1: is one that we actually used recently in talking about

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Speaker 1: bs or just to go ahead and bleet meum a bullet, right,

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Speaker 1: But I don't think I've ever used barbecue sauce. I

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Speaker 1: saw that one listed as well. Where'd you see that?

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Speaker 1: It was in one of the papers so that we

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Speaker 1: were looking at they mentioned barbecues. So I would like

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Speaker 1: to hear from anyone who who says that's just the

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Speaker 1: load of barbecue sauce. Barbecue has never heard that. It

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Speaker 1: must be a regional, regional thing. What kind of barbecue sauce,

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Speaker 1: especially if it's regional North Carolina, South Carolina, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Or beasting. Beasting would be a good one. Oh is

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Speaker 1: that actually used? No? I just made that up. I

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Speaker 1: was trying to think, what what what could you that's

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Speaker 1: even that even has some of the same consonants in it. Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: how about malarkey or maybe malarkey? Is malarkey actually more

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Speaker 1: offensive in in its origin? And we're just it's one

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Speaker 1: of these things where we don't know what it means anymore.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea where it comes from. It would

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Speaker 1: be horrible to go look that up later and find

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Speaker 1: out it's a deeply offensive term yeah, And you know,

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Speaker 1: I feel like that happens a time or two as well.

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Speaker 1: We we have something we think is is a euphemism,

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Speaker 1: but in reality we're just using a far more offensive

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Speaker 1: term than that fewer people are familiar with. Okay, But

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Speaker 1: so when you use euphemisms, how however you form the

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Speaker 1: new phrase or the new word, you're essentially doing maybe

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Speaker 1: three different kind of things, right, Yeah, when you bust

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Speaker 1: out euphemism, you may be employing what is called circumlocution

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Speaker 1: to to speak around that which cannot be said, ye, circumlocution,

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Speaker 1: And that's something we often use in a non euphemistic

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Speaker 1: way to like, we use it when we're speaking a

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Speaker 1: language we're not very familiar with. If you've ever tried

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Speaker 1: to speak another language, you often don't have the word

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Speaker 1: for a thing, so instead you circumlocute, You say a

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Speaker 1: bunch of things that are sort of explaining the concept

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Speaker 1: of the word to try to get to it. But

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Speaker 1: this would be a case where you do the same

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Speaker 1: thing not because you don't have the word, but because

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Speaker 1: you don't want to use the word. Yeah. And another

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Speaker 1: example would be a taboo deformation. So we're just we're

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Speaker 1: altering the spelling or pronunciation of of that which cannot

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Speaker 1: be said, So go fudge yourself, um you mother effort.

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Speaker 1: That would be an example of of the use of taboo,

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Speaker 1: defamation or gold aren't yeah called aren't it? We're just

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Speaker 1: take like thinking, think of the obscenity. Is this clay object,

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Speaker 1: and we're just wrenching it into a less profane shape,

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Speaker 1: but we still know what its original shape was. It's

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Speaker 1: still it's still echoes that form enough for us to

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Speaker 1: use it, albeit in a blunted form. Yeah, And I

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Speaker 1: guess the other main thing would be sort of robbing

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Speaker 1: the word of its power to conjure imagery. Yeah, double speak, right, um,

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Speaker 1: making neutral the awful. I think one of the best

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Speaker 1: examples of this is to say, uh, the enemy combatant

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Speaker 1: was neutralized, which sounds far nicer than we We shot

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Speaker 1: Rolf to death and his his family will be without him. Now.

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Speaker 1: You know, Rolf was hit with an explosive that resulted

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Speaker 1: in complete body deft defragmentation, which I guess is that'd

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Speaker 1: be sort of that's kind of a euthanism as well, right,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, defragmentation, what would it be? Rolf was hit

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Speaker 1: by an explosion that severed many arteries. Yes, but you know,

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Speaker 1: it's not that funny. I don't know why, I'm no, no no,

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Speaker 1: but it's kind of getting it as we try to

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Speaker 1: to dance around Rolf's death, and he even discussed more

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Speaker 1: accurately what happened to Rolf. Are some things in life

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Speaker 1: almost like too dreadful, Like there's there's no way that language,

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Speaker 1: at least brief language, can accurately describe something that that

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Speaker 1: is that horrible. I don't know, I mean, it's interesting

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Speaker 1: to look at the general categories of things that we

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Speaker 1: have euphemisms for. It's not just arbitrary. It's like, it's

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Speaker 1: not like we just have euphemisms for anything. We have

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Speaker 1: euphemisms usually for terms having to do with the inevitable

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Speaker 1: processes of the human body, like like elimination of waste, uh,

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Speaker 1: sex and death. Those those are the big things that

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Speaker 1: you have euphemisms for, but also for culturally sensitive issues

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Speaker 1: like you know, for names of marginalized groups that are

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Speaker 1: discriminated against or something like that. Yeah, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: as well as the the way these things are shadowed.

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Speaker 1: And certainly as there's a whole area of business euphemism

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Speaker 1: to discussed discussed as well, oh absolutely, yeah. Of course,

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Speaker 1: we have a number of different euphemisms to to to

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Speaker 1: refer to firing someone, which is kind of the workplace

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Speaker 1: version of death right we have. For instance, you may

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Speaker 1: have heard about layoffs, downsizing, right sizing. That's like, that's

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Speaker 1: a euphemism on top of a euphemism like downsizing. That's

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Speaker 1: you know, we're not downsizing, we're right sizing. We're just

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Speaker 1: we're just making the organization the correct size for what

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Speaker 1: we're doing here. Head count adjustment or head count reduction

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Speaker 1: uh an r I F or reduction enforce a realignment.

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Speaker 1: These are also so fabulous, wonderful terms that allow UH

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Speaker 1: management to do horrible things to people's lives. The words

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Speaker 1: about feeling bad about it. The worst is let go.

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Speaker 1: It's like you're free. Oh yeah, we had we had

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Speaker 1: to let We had to let you go. You should

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Speaker 1: be making us right. I think, maybe more than anywhere

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Speaker 1: else I go in in my life, the business world

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Speaker 1: is absolutely built out of euphemism. So I think a

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Speaker 1: reason for this might be that the business relationship is

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Speaker 1: essentially a cutthroat relationship most of the time. If employers

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Speaker 1: can scam customers or employees out of another nickel and

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Speaker 1: get away with it and keep making money. They will

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Speaker 1: do it most of the time, and vice versa. You know,

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Speaker 1: every everybody in the business relationship is trying to get

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Speaker 1: an extra nickel and and give as little as they

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Speaker 1: can for it. But at the same time, customers and

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Speaker 1: employers and employees interact with one another all the time.

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Speaker 1: You have to see your employer on a regular basis.

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Speaker 1: I mean most people do. Uh, So they want to

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Speaker 1: have pleasant relationships with the people they interact with. So

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Speaker 1: you kind of live in this state of denial about

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Speaker 1: the heartless, cutthroat principle at the foundation of your work relationships.

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Speaker 1: And it's weird trying to be friendly with your boss

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Speaker 1: when you're thinking about the fact that your boss could

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Speaker 1: fire you at any time, and in some places, for

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Speaker 1: any reason. So we we sort of pack our business

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Speaker 1: lives with euphemisms to avoid thinking about this cutthroat reality.

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Speaker 1: In addition to the euphemisms for firing. One thing I

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Speaker 1: was thinking about was, Robert, have you ever noticed that,

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Speaker 1: at least in my experience, maybe in years two, businesses

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Speaker 1: seem to never want to talk about quote money. Oh yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So maybe I'm imagining this, but it seems like money,

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Speaker 1: it's always removed to one higher level of abstraction, like

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Speaker 1: revenue or returns or something like that. Uh. And it's

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Speaker 1: as if talking about money directly would reveal that the

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Speaker 1: whole enterprise is kind of tacky at its core, or

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Speaker 1: you know, not only revenue but rev ev share, Like

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Speaker 1: that's the term that is thrown around a lot in

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Speaker 1: our industry now. And yet you talk about rev share

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Speaker 1: then it's just an item on on a sheet. But

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Speaker 1: if you say, I want you to give me more

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Speaker 1: of some of the money that you're getting for the

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Speaker 1: thing that I'm making for you so that you can

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Speaker 1: make money, uh, then it gets a little less tidy, right,

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Speaker 1: It's like, why are you making it like that? It's

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Speaker 1: like you've said something really mean when you're just saying

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Speaker 1: in direct terms what you're talking about. Yeah. I often

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Speaker 1: think about you know, we we've already the studies in

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Speaker 1: terms of businesses where corporations are essentially psychopaths. I often,

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Speaker 1: and I often think of it in terms of like

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Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, uh, beings than various cyberpunk stories. So a

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Speaker 1: corporation is essentially this this demon, and this demon is

401
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Speaker 1: bound by whatever chains of law and uh and policy

402
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Speaker 1: and regulations that we can muster to keep it in check.

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Speaker 1: And then we we sort of handle it with specialized

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Speaker 1: gloves often you know, composed of euphemisms that allow us

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Speaker 1: to handle it and benefit from its presence. But there's

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Speaker 1: no denying that it's it's horrible demonic nature. It's a

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Speaker 1: nice analogy, it's it comes from I guess I read

408
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Speaker 1: one too many Warhammer book and in my time, Oh,

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Speaker 1: they have demon gloves for the corporations. Um, we'll know

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Speaker 1: they have actual demons sometimes and they're chained up and

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Speaker 1: they serve the who is it the witch hunters? Yeah, excellent, Well,

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Speaker 1: I think we should take a quick break and when

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Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to talk about some of

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Speaker 1: the cultural implications of euphemisms. So, yeah, we're talking about

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Speaker 1: language here. We have multiple languages throughout the world. Every

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Speaker 1: culture is it kind of emerges from its own linguistic world,

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Speaker 1: and therefore we have we have different uses of euphemism

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Speaker 1: in in different languages. We have different uses of euphemism

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Speaker 1: in just different versions of different languages, different dialects, right,

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Speaker 1: British English versus American English, and so a lot of

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Speaker 1: our reference points are going to be English, but it

422
00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:00,119
Speaker 1: is worth looking into the use of euphemisms may be

423
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:04,400
Speaker 1: in other languages too. Yeah, two great examples I think

424
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:08,199
Speaker 1: come from British English and Mandarin Chinese. So the the

425
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,639
Speaker 1: Economists ran a great and naturally unattributed article back in

426
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,879
Speaker 1: um titled making Murder Respectable, and it runs through a

427
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 1: number of examples of euphemisms that are currently uh or

428
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 1: or sort of previously in use. I think some of

429
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:25,719
Speaker 1: the British ones have fallen out of favor. Did you

430
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: notice that nice euphemism. They're unattributed, where the real term

431
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: would be the author's name is not listed. Yeah, you

432
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:35,679
Speaker 1: can either you would even say the the author is

433
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 1: anonymous or or not credited for their work. But I

434
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 1: mean that's the economist business as a whole, separate, separate,

435
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:46,439
Speaker 1: separate discussion. Uh So, Yeah, we have a number of

436
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 1: course American euphemisms, which the the author in this uff

437
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: this article points out that these of course just replaced

438
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 1: non offensive words terms with new non offensive words in terms.

439
00:24:57,640 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 1: We'll get into the details on this in a bit,

440
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:02,200
Speaker 1: but in Hails, something that's that's been referred to as

441
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: the euphemism treadmill right by the linguist and general scholar

442
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 1: Stephen Pinker. Yeah. Yeah, contemporary, very very much contemporary, still

443
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:16,159
Speaker 1: commenting on the world we find ourselves in today. British euphemisms,

444
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 1: on the other hand, they create quote a pleasant sense

445
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:25,480
Speaker 1: of of complicity between the euphemist and the individual that's

446
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:29,159
Speaker 1: listening to the euphemist. The first few examples that the

447
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: author rolls outcome from British oh bits. So a drunkard

448
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: will be described as as convivial or cheery that's great, um,

449
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 1: A niphomaniac is uh has notable vivacity, and in in

450
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: prior times, you would of course encountered a homosexual only

451
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,680
Speaker 1: as a quote confirmed bachelor. With all of these, it's

452
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 1: almost as if the person using the euphemism and the

453
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 1: person hearing it are so sort of in on a

454
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: joke together. Yeah, yeah, there's a And that's something that

455
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: the author gets into here too, is you you have

456
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: to be on it on the joke to really understand

457
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: at least proper British, proper British conversation. You have to

458
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:19,919
Speaker 1: know the cues, otherwise you're gonna have no idea what

459
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 1: you're talking about. One more from the oh bit world, though,

460
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: is that there's the mysterious burdened by occasional irregularities in

461
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: his private life. Private life, which is delightfully that like

462
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:35,920
Speaker 1: what what I assume that means scandal scandal ridden life.

463
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: But that's that's a lot sharper. So Yeah. The author

464
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 1: points out that there are a number of passive cues

465
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:50,919
Speaker 1: in sort of traditional high British conversation, such as, incidentally, incidentally, Joe, Uh,

466
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: this would mean I am now telling you the purpose

467
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: of this discussion, even though I'm saying incidentally, as if

468
00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: this is just an incidental point I want to make,

469
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: I'm actually saying, all right, cut all the crap, this

470
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: is the real reason we're meeting here today. Another one

471
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: that the the author mentions with the greatest respect, with

472
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 1: the greatest respect, Joe Uh, that means you are mistaken

473
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:18,399
Speaker 1: and silly, which which which seems to be the complete

474
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 1: opposite of what you're literally saying. I can think of

475
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: a Southern American equivalent, was that, bless his heart. Bless

476
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,359
Speaker 1: his heart. Yeah, bless his heart. That means sort of

477
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 1: the opposite of what it said. I think that's a

478
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 1: great example. Now, the the author of this economist piece

479
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: also pointed out that there are a number of Chinese euphemisms,

480
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: and these, like American euphemisms, often stem from squeamishness. It's

481
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: not proper to be too direct, especially if you might

482
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: offend somebody. So it's this idea of of a polite opacity.

483
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: So instead of turning down an invitation, uh, and this

484
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: might be like a this can be a really formal invitation,

485
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: like you know, a political of a political nature. One

486
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: might be hold that that something is a boufong bian,

487
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 1: which means not convenient, when that, of course really means

488
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: we're not doing that. That's not happening. So it's not

489
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 1: like this is a bad time for me. Can we

490
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:16,479
Speaker 1: reschedule right? It's it's very reminiscent of I imagine everyone

491
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 1: out there has some friend or acquaintance that's very flaky,

492
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: very wishy washy about their appointments. You say, hey, do

493
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:24,880
Speaker 1: you want to hang out this week? Let me check

494
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: my calendar. Uh, let me see, I'll get back to you,

495
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: you know, instead of sometimes that means that they sometimes yeah,

496
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. And if you didn't, if you

497
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 1: didn't know better, you might you know, you might have

498
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 1: a policy an official inquiry with the Chinese government official

499
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: and you and you might say, oh, well it's not convenient,

500
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: I'll try again tomorrow, but no, you're not getting the message.

501
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: It's not convenient, it's not going to happen. Perhaps Ever,

502
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: another example is is one might ask for an explanation

503
00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 1: of something and you might get boching chu, which means, uh,

504
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: I am not clear, which just means you're not going

505
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: to be told like it basically means I can't tell

506
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: you that or I won't tell you that. But it's

507
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: it's it's casting that in the guise of why I'm

508
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: not really clear on the information, but it also kind

509
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: of sounds like I am not clear and that I

510
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: am not I am open, I am open. Yeah, So

511
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: I find it interests and the examples like this in

512
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: every language, and perhaps our listeners out there, if you

513
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: have particular examples you're aware of in a tongue that

514
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: you speak or have some history with, we'd love to

515
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: hear those examples. Oh yeah, I always love hearing the

516
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: different idioms from around the world that we get from listeners.

517
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 1: One of my favorites was we heard from a listener

518
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: and oh, now I apologize, I can't remember which language

519
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 1: it was. I think it was Swedish or Norwegian or

520
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: maybe uh, Scandinavian language, and the expression was it was

521
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: an expression that means something is a miss, and the

522
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: term is there are owls in the moss. I love it.

523
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: That's great, there are owls in the moss. That's that's

524
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: pretty good. If you're the one who sent that to us,

525
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: which I still think about that a lot. Thank you

526
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: so much. Okay, Well, for one other arena of of

527
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: the interaction between culture and euphemism, I was thinking about

528
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: what about religious euphemisms? So I sometimes see, here's just

529
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: one example. I want to talk about a few different examples.

530
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: One of them is the way some Christians use euphemism

531
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: to talk about certain doctrines that they haven't explicitly rejected,

532
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: but obviously aren't comfortable talking about directly. And one example

533
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: that I have encountered before is the Christian doctrine of hell. Uh. Now,

534
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: there are many doctrines of hell, and I don't want

535
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: to paint all believers with the same view, but one

536
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: common interpretation throughout the history of the Church is the

537
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: sort of Dante's Inferno interpretation, saying that Dante is more

538
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: or less correct. After death, people who are non Christians

539
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: or people who are unrepentant sinners go to a place

540
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: of eternal torture and agony in fire. And some modern

541
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: Christians explicitly deny that premise. They just don't believe that

542
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: in that or they don't interpret the references to Hell

543
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 1: that way. Right. Yeah, we actually have an older Stuff

544
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: to Wear your Mind episode on this that that goes

545
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: through some of the theologies, and I think we have

546
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 1: a we have a list or gallery that I can

547
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: link to on the landing page for this episode of

548
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: Stuff to Bring your Mind dot com. But yeah, you

549
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: have everything from this literal interpretation to annihilation theology, which

550
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: says when you die going to Hell is that simply

551
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: essentially you are consumed. Your soul is just completely obliterated. Yeah,

552
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: you just ceased to be. Yeah. Yeah. And then, of course,

553
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:48,959
Speaker 1: as you allude to, some some do accept and embrace

554
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: it and say explicitly what they mean, you know, Hell

555
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: is a place of torment, depart from me and everlasting fire.

556
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: But there are some people who at least rhetorically seems

557
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 1: stuck in the middle. I hear this fairly often. They

558
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: don't reject the doctrine, but they don't want to talk

559
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: about it bluntly. So you get phrases that are things

560
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: like the the unrighteous or the unbeliever will suffer divine

561
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: judgment or something like that. It's euphemistic in nature. You know,

562
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: you haven't rejected the belief, but you just don't want

563
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:24,120
Speaker 1: to talk about the particulars of it. That's interesting. So

564
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: they're basically they might, for instance, they might believe in

565
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: this uh, this sort of torture uh revenge fantasy of hell,

566
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 1: but they're using the language of annihilation theology instead as

567
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: a euphemism for what they actually believe, or just not

568
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: being specific about what the judgment entails. Yeah, I mean,

569
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: I think there are there are other terms too. That

570
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: was the first one that came to my mind. It

571
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: ha's such a weird area to consider, right, because so

572
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: many of these when you're using a euphemism for you know,

573
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: your your but you're talking about a thing that has

574
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,959
Speaker 1: a definite reality. There's there's nothing subjective. It's not a

575
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: doctrine or belief, right, there is an objective, but there's

576
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: an objective their objective buttocks, there is an anus. There's

577
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 1: no denying there no, there no, no, no denying these things.

578
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: But when you get into Hell, they are all these discussions.

579
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: There's there's been, there's a there's a there's a broad

580
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: spectrum of theologies regarding its existence or non existence. I mean,

581
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:28,959
Speaker 1: I'm I'm personally of the mind that whatever your belief

582
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: about Hell is, you should you should, you should speak

583
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: clearly about it. Another type of religious euphemism, I would say,

584
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: is motivated by a very different type of thing. Instead

585
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: of being uncomfortable with certain concepts or not wanting to

586
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: talk about certain things, it extends from a perception of

587
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: holiness or reverence. And this is the evolution of the

588
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: name of God in Judaism throughout history. So it's not

589
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: that the name of God has changed so much, or

590
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 1: at least not much in recent history in Judaism, but

591
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 1: that at certain points throughout history, usage of the name

592
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: has become taboo because of beliefs about not taking the

593
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 1: name of the Lord in vain. And thus it is

594
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: required to have a new word if you want to

595
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:22,720
Speaker 1: talk about religious ideas such as your belief in God

596
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: without referencing this word, that you might be using the

597
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 1: wrong way. And so some of my info here is

598
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 1: coming from a book on Hebrew and Western the Hebrew

599
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 1: and Western Christian Name of God by Robert J. Wilkinson.

600
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,800
Speaker 1: But in the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish God has several names.

601
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:44,040
Speaker 1: You've got names like ale and ale yawn Uh, Eloheim,

602
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:48,240
Speaker 1: but the most common is Yahweh, the four letter word

603
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: that's often called the tetragrammaton meaning four letters um. And

604
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 1: at a certain point in the history of Judaism, and

605
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 1: generally in that the Hellenistic period, you know, the Greek Conquest,

606
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: a taboo on pronouncing the name emerged. And so, to

607
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:08,280
Speaker 1: quote one story about this origin from the Babylonian Talbot, quote,

608
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: the Greeks, and that's referring to the Seleucid rulers of

609
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 1: the region at that time, decreed that the name of

610
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: God may not be spoken aloud. But when the Hasmanians,

611
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 1: and it was a group of Jewish rebels, grew in

612
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: strength and defeated them, they decreed that the name of

613
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: God be used even in contracts. And an example of

614
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 1: this might be something like by the name of Yahweh,

615
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 1: I will paint your chicken coop if you give me

616
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: a tray of corn money um and so. But then

617
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: continuing from the Talmud, when the rabbis heard about this,

618
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 1: they said, tomorrow this person will pay his debt and

619
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: the contract will be thrown on a garbage heap. So

620
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 1: they forbade its use in contracts. Uh. So it wasn't

621
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: the use of the name that was necessarily inherently wrong.

622
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:55,839
Speaker 1: It was just that using it in this way for

623
00:35:55,880 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 1: sort of everyday purposes made it vulnerable to accidental defilement. Okay,

624
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: so you have, in a sense, you have a very

625
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 1: secular use of divine terminology and uh and it's not

626
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: proper to throw that around, right, to just make up

627
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:14,399
Speaker 1: a contract with the name of God, and that you'd

628
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 1: end up throwing in the trash. It's like if you

629
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: were what's the the the Clive Barker film where you

630
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 1: say that the name three times and he shows up,

631
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: candy Man, candy Man. Yea, So it's like candy Man.

632
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 1: Can't you don't want to say candy man all the

633
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: time because he will show up and start killing people.

634
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: You've got a limited number of times you can invoke that. Yeah,

635
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: so we need to have another name for candy Man.

636
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:38,880
Speaker 1: You call him like, you know, sweet guy, sweet guy. Yeah,

637
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: But then after a while, like there's still a candy

638
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,839
Speaker 1: man is just so magical and so potent that he's

639
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:46,760
Speaker 1: going to creep into that term as well and start

640
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:48,480
Speaker 1: popping up when you say that words, So you gotta

641
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 1: come up with another one. Yeah, But so anyway, going on,

642
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: in the same spirit of avoiding accidental defilements, some Jews

643
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: throughout history have avoided saying the tetragrammaton name out loud,

644
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 1: even in context where I would think one would assume

645
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: it was probably not being defiled, such as in reading

646
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: of the Torah. So you might have readings allowed from

647
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: the Torah where the reader would come to the four

648
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:14,839
Speaker 1: letter name of God, and then instead of saying it,

649
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 1: the reader would substitute something like the word ada and i,

650
00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: which means lord or master. But then in time, the

651
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: originally euphemistic ad and i, which was just substituted to

652
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: avoid saying the original name, also came to be charged

653
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 1: with the original holiness of the name of God. And

654
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 1: so then later you'd have some Jews referring to God

655
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: as Hashem, meaning the name. So you have this evolutionary

656
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,800
Speaker 1: process by which um a word is used to avoid disrespect.

657
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 1: But then that word sort of becomes worthy of respect

658
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: in in its own right. But then anyway, So, according

659
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 1: to the Talmud, sometimes shortly after the conquest of Alexander

660
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 1: the Great, the High Priest stopped saying the name of

661
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 1: God when when giving blessings. And in the Missionah, which

662
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 1: is a work of Jewish rabbinic literature putting down lots

663
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,879
Speaker 1: of Jewish oral traditions into writing, the name of God

664
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 1: is often avoided and substituted with other words associated with God,

665
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: like Heaven or the place, or the Holy One, blessed

666
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: be he uh and so again, I think these euphemisms

667
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: are interesting because they're not used to avoid mentioning something

668
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: unpleasant or offensive, but to avoid accidental defilement of a

669
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: word that, in this religious concept context, is believed to

670
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 1: be holy, believed to be treated with reverence and respect.

671
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:42,320
Speaker 1: That's interesting because I think it's easy to to believe

672
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: that you just have all these different names for for

673
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 1: God solely because hey, God's really cool, really important and

674
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: has all these uh, these these different points in time

675
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 1: where people are considering it, and therefore they need a

676
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 1: different name for it, uh, you know. And then we

677
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 1: see that that sort of loose interpretation reflect did in

678
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: our discussion of unreal deities, where so like Goes, Goes

679
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:08,760
Speaker 1: or the Ghazarian has several different names and Ghostbusters, Um,

680
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: probably just because Goes are is cool and needs a

681
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: number of names, right, Yeah, it's true like you've lost

682
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:20,760
Speaker 1: the original, uh, the original rationale for all this diversification,

683
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: but you've still got the process. It's a cargo cult

684
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 1: of naming deity. But I was just wondering, are there

685
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,399
Speaker 1: similar euphemisms and other religions too, for for either one

686
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 1: for talking about concepts that might be uncomfortable to some believers,

687
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:39,760
Speaker 1: yet they haven't been fully rejected or talking about things

688
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: that cannot be named out of respect. Yeah, we we

689
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:45,400
Speaker 1: briefly talked about this before we came in here, and

690
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 1: we had a hard time nailing down another example. We

691
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 1: we talked about the devil a little bit, but I

692
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,760
Speaker 1: think that's not exactly the same. It's not because there's

693
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,799
Speaker 1: this there's this timeline in our development of of of

694
00:39:56,880 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 1: the devil as a concept that's really kind of similar

695
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: to our concept of l where the devil as the

696
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 1: sort of popular conception of the western devil or even

697
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: like the classical devil or the or the Miltonian devil

698
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:13,280
Speaker 1: or Dante's devil, Like, these are all vastly different things,

699
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: and they occur at different points in our evolving conception

700
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: of the devil, and even just been a biblical basis. Uh,

701
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: you go back to say the Book of Job, like,

702
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: that's not the devil, that's that's some guy who works

703
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: for God. That's called Satan that I believe stems from

704
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:35,320
Speaker 1: the Hebraic Hasitan, which was just a court role. Yeah, exactly.

705
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: But then I think we've also not, um, we've not

706
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: had the same kind of evolution because the devil is

707
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 1: not really considered holy. So yeah, in fact, there's often

708
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: the the the opposite effort to to really cast the

709
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: devil down instead refer to refer to it as a

710
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 1: worm or or what have you. Sometimes we should do

711
00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 1: a history of the Devil show. Oh yeah, we should.

712
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 1: But anyway, so I want to move on yet and

713
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 1: from one totally on uncontroversial subject religion to another one politics. Um. So,

714
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 1: there is definitely a strong cultural import of euphemism in politics.

715
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 1: And this is this probably won't come as a surprise

716
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: to you, but exactly how it works out, you might

717
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,480
Speaker 1: be a little fuzzy on. And this is something that is, uh,

718
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 1: you can definitely find explored in a really lucid and

719
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: fascinating way in the nineteen forty six essay by George Orwell,

720
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 1: the English journalist and critic called Politics and the English Language.

721
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: And in this essay, which by the way, is a

722
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: lot of people might have read it in college as

723
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 1: sort of just like a writing style essay. But I

724
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:44,800
Speaker 1: think it's a great read. It's just fun to read.

725
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:48,319
Speaker 1: He's got a great writing style, uh. In anyway, In

726
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: this essay, Orwell lays out a series of criticisms as

727
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 1: what he saw as the deterioration of the quality of

728
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 1: published writing in English in his time. So he's coming

729
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,359
Speaker 1: right out of World War Two. You know, You've you've

730
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: got a you've got a victorious Soviet Union to deal with.

731
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,720
Speaker 1: You've just you've just had the fall of the Nazi regime.

732
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 1: The world has been in chaos for a while. But anyway,

733
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:15,800
Speaker 1: he so he's talking about in this in this climate,

734
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 1: the English language has really been put through the ringer.

735
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 1: Oh and I just used a cliche that he would

736
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:24,640
Speaker 1: aborre because he attacks the use of cliches like that

737
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: in his essay. But in one famous passage, or Well

738
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: translates a well written verse from the King James Bible

739
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 1: translation of the Book of Ecclesiastes into the style he's

740
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: referring to in modern English. And so I just got

741
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: to read this because it's too good. The King James

742
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 1: Bible says, I returned and saw under the sun, that

743
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: the race is not to the swift, nor the battle

744
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 1: to the strong, neither yet bred to the wise, nor

745
00:42:56,120 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 1: yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor men

746
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: of skill. But time and chance happeneth to them all. Okay,

747
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:10,920
Speaker 1: Orwell's rewriting of that in modern English is objective. Considerations

748
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 1: of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure

749
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:19,440
Speaker 1: in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with

750
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 1: innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable

751
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 1: must invariably be taken into account. Now it does communicate

752
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: the same sense basically, right. Yeah, I almost feel like

753
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 1: like his translation of it is better. Maybe it I

754
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: think maybe it just comes from reading too many, you know,

755
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 1: god awful peer of viewed papers for work. But but

756
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 1: I feel like that when kind of drove home a little,

757
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:49,799
Speaker 1: a little, a little easier for me. Oh man, I

758
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:53,799
Speaker 1: can't agree with you here, Robert. That is awful. Come on, yeah, hey,

759
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 1: you know okay, Well anyway, so so Orwell goes on

760
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,720
Speaker 1: to say in in his main characterization that quote modern

761
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: writing at its worst does not consist in picking out

762
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images

763
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 1: in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in

764
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 1: coming together long strips of words which have already been

765
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: set in order by someone else, and making the results

766
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 1: presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of

767
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: writing is that it is easy, and I think there's

768
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: some truth to that, like that, when you use these

769
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:33,240
Speaker 1: sort of cliches and bloated phrases, it writing comes very naturally.

770
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 1: You don't have to think as much about the images

771
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 1: or the words you're choosing as you do when you

772
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: try to write things in a simpler, uh more concrete way. Well,

773
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: I mean there's this second example. I was. I instantly

774
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: thought of peer of viewed papers because there is this

775
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:54,760
Speaker 1: this often very specific, clinical, technical discussion of what's going on. Often,

776
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,080
Speaker 1: you know, not not all the time, but sometimes this

777
00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:01,279
Speaker 1: can feel a bit soulless, but you can you can

778
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: read it and you you basically you basically know what

779
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:09,360
Speaker 1: they're talking about in in great detail, and there's less

780
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: interpretation involved. And so yeah, it's it's a less creative venture, uh,

781
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: either to to write or to read. But is it

782
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 1: more exact? I don't know if it is. And I

783
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 1: think Well or Well might disagree with you, but I

784
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: would like to hear what you think. When season so,

785
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:26,919
Speaker 1: I want to get to his main argument. Then maybe

786
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:29,000
Speaker 1: you can come back and flog or Well for me.

787
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,760
Speaker 1: So for Orwell, the decline in the quality of writing

788
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:36,840
Speaker 1: was not just an esthetic concern. It's not just bad

789
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:41,360
Speaker 1: writing that is less enjoyable to read. It is actually

790
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: a threat against truth, freedom and social democracy. English quote

791
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:51,279
Speaker 1: becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but

792
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,879
Speaker 1: the slovenly of our language makes it easier for us

793
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: to have foolish thoughts. And so if you've read Orwell's

794
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,279
Speaker 1: novel novel nine or Robert, I assume you've read in

795
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, Yeah, you'll recall that at the time

796
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: of the story takes place, the totalitarian government in the

797
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: novel working under Big Brother is engaged in the creation

798
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 1: of a new form of English known as new speak

799
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,840
Speaker 1: and uh. In In Politics and Language, Orwell says quote,

800
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 1: if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. And

801
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: new Speak in in nineteen eighty four very much embodies this.

802
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 1: It reflects. I think what Orwell saw is the political

803
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:33,840
Speaker 1: power of language. Essentially, control the use of language, and

804
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:37,359
Speaker 1: you control how people think, control how people think, and

805
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: you command them to your purpose. Uh. And So I

806
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:43,640
Speaker 1: want to read one long ish quote from Politics in

807
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 1: the English Language where he really gets to how euphemisms

808
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:50,760
Speaker 1: are used in political writing and political journalism. So here's

809
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: the quote, with a few abridgements for length. In our time,

810
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:59,279
Speaker 1: political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

811
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:04,840
Speaker 1: Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question, begging,

812
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:09,959
Speaker 1: and sheer, cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air.

813
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 1: The inhabitants are driven out into the countryside, the cattle

814
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: machine gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets.

815
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 1: This is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of

816
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no

817
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 1: more than they can carry. This is called transfer of

818
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 1: the population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for

819
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:36,919
Speaker 1: years without trial, shot in the back of the neck,

820
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: or sent to die of scurvy and arctic lumber camps.

821
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: This is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is

822
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,359
Speaker 1: needed if one wants to name things without calling up

823
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 1: mental pictures of them. Consider, for instance, some comfortable English

824
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:58,359
Speaker 1: professor defending Russian totalitarianism, and he's talking about Stalinism. There

825
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:02,879
Speaker 1: he cannot say outright, I believe in killing off your

826
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: opponents when you can get good results by doing so. Probably,

827
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 1: therefore he will say something like this, while freely conceding

828
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 1: that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features with which the

829
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, i think,

830
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:20,560
Speaker 1: agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political

831
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:25,359
Speaker 1: opposition is an unavoidable concommitant of transitional periods, and that

832
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon

833
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 1: to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of

834
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:36,920
Speaker 1: concrete achievement. The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism.

835
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like

836
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:44,439
Speaker 1: soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details.

837
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:47,319
Speaker 1: So what do you think about that, Robert No, I mean,

838
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:49,919
Speaker 1: I I agree with that. It's it guess it comes

839
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 1: down to like this kind of this kind of writing

840
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: they were talking about, is it's essentially writing like a

841
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 1: machine and and inviting the reader to think about the

842
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 1: the topic like a machine with sort of this with

843
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 1: without any of these human touches. That that that add

844
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:13,920
Speaker 1: humanity to the subject matter, which in a I think

845
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:17,359
Speaker 1: in a scientific environment like or certainly, and then say

846
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 1: a study about E. Coli in a in a lab experiment,

847
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 1: that's perfectly that's perfectly fair. Like that's the way to

848
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 1: do it. But of course, when you when you're getting

849
00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:31,280
Speaker 1: into um, you know, affairs of politics and war certainly,

850
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 1: um even domestic politics. You know, the people's lives hang

851
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:38,879
Speaker 1: in the balance, and if you distance yourself with language enough,

852
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:40,799
Speaker 1: then you don't have to deal with the the the

853
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 1: actual flesh and blood ramifications of what you're talking about.

854
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:47,759
Speaker 1: But then the other side of that is it's somebody's

855
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 1: job right to make a better killing machine. It's somebody's

856
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:55,880
Speaker 1: job to uh to to cut how the funding of

857
00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:59,719
Speaker 1: public housing. You know, so of course they're going to

858
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:01,759
Speaker 1: try and do it in a way that makes them

859
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:06,000
Speaker 1: feel less ikey, right, I mean so Orwell says political language.

860
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 1: Uh and he says that this comes from both sides,

861
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:13,320
Speaker 1: from conservatives to anarchists. Is designed to make lies sound

862
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:17,319
Speaker 1: truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of

863
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: solidity to pure wind. And I think there is a

864
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 1: lot of truth to that. Yeah, that you I mean,

865
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:26,719
Speaker 1: I understand the need for it. I'm not saying that

866
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:30,880
Speaker 1: it has done purely out of calculating malice. There there

867
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 1: are people who work in in government who do things

868
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 1: that you would probably think of as bad, but who

869
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: don't think of themselves as bad people. And so they

870
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: have they have they've got to come up with some

871
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: way of getting around this. And it's this circumlocution, or

872
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 1: it's this neutralizing language, like we talked about earlier, coming

873
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 1: up with these abstract terminologies, naming things in terms of

874
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: processes rather than of consequences. You know, Uh, it's not

875
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 1: that we killed a guy, but the enemy was neutralized

876
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:04,279
Speaker 1: and for or well, you know, I think these types

877
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:07,440
Speaker 1: of phrases and euphemisms are they're not limited to the

878
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 1: rulers themselves right, that they're not limited just two people

879
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,319
Speaker 1: who want to justify themselves in tyranny and stupefy the

880
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:18,760
Speaker 1: masses with this lullaby of empty, denatured language. They're also

881
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 1: used by people who should know better, people who who

882
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 1: might even be critical of those in power. Euphemisms and

883
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 1: mushy phrases are used, he emphasizes, because they're easy. They

884
00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 1: make writing easier, and they make thinking about concepts easier.

885
00:51:34,600 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 1: Euphemisms are like a lubricant that just allows you to

886
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:42,759
Speaker 1: easily insert your mind into a conversation without struggling with

887
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:46,319
Speaker 1: the most difficult implications of it. And for or well,

888
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 1: this is not just applicable to these political euphemisms, you know,

889
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: for killing and and and these horrible acts, but it

890
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 1: goes into everyday conversation. So he writes quote phrases like

891
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 1: a not unjustifiable assumption leaves much to be desired, would

892
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 1: serve no good purpose, A consideration which we should do

893
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:10,879
Speaker 1: well to bear in mind. Are a continuous and he says,

894
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 1: those are a continuous temptation, A packet of aspirins always

895
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: at one's elbow, And I really do like that idea

896
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:23,239
Speaker 1: of the euphemism as a painkiller. Yeah, it makes me think, well, yeah,

897
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:28,240
Speaker 1: I'm instantly thinking of of of various recent examples of

898
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:31,920
Speaker 1: of strong statements about about war and the use of

899
00:52:31,960 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 1: warm in a political climate. And here I'm using euphemisms

900
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 1: already to to talk about it. But it's it's like,

901
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:42,440
Speaker 1: it's like, if you have this sentence where you're going

902
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:46,359
Speaker 1: to say, we are going to eliminate enemy combatants a right,

903
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:49,000
Speaker 1: and if you if you start removing some of the

904
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:52,799
Speaker 1: euphemisms there, you still have to try and make that

905
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: unacceptable sentence to whoever whoever is saying or um or

906
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: listening to it. So if if you replace eliminate with kill,

907
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: if you replace eliminate with with you know, um, carpet

908
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:08,640
Speaker 1: bomb or something like that, and if you were put

909
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 1: then you're still going to have to try and make

910
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:13,640
Speaker 1: it a sentence that you can live with. And sometimes

911
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 1: that comes. So what else can you change in that sentence?

912
00:53:16,400 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: You can change enemy combatants to barbarians, you can, or

913
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:24,680
Speaker 1: any other various form that also dehumanizes what's going on.

914
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:29,560
Speaker 1: But by point should by changing the direction of the dehumanization, right, Well,

915
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:32,360
Speaker 1: that would be what was what is known as a dysphemism. R.

916
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:35,719
Speaker 1: There's that. How you pronounce it? A euphemism would be

917
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:39,879
Speaker 1: you know it's euphemism comes from you meaning good and

918
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 1: female female meaning speech. So a dysphemism is the opposite. Essentially,

919
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:49,440
Speaker 1: you're you're taking a concept that's inherently neutral and applying

920
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:53,880
Speaker 1: a term to it that is a bad filtering terms.

921
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:57,400
Speaker 1: It essentially filters out the good imagery or things you

922
00:53:57,480 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 1: might associate with a thing and gives it bad connotations. Well,

923
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:06,800
Speaker 1: what's a good example here of a dispimism for our listeners?

924
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 1: How about? How about somebody is not happy with a

925
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 1: deal that they made. You know, they bought a car

926
00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 1: or something, and they say I got ripped off. Oh,

927
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 1: And to take it a step further, they would say,

928
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:19,880
Speaker 1: oh I got screwed. Yeah, I really got screwed in

929
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:23,279
Speaker 1: that deal. Did you really get quote unquote screwed in

930
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:26,320
Speaker 1: any of the various interpretations there? No, you just bought

931
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:29,200
Speaker 1: something and you you later regretted how much you spent

932
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 1: on it or something. But they they have used the

933
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:35,880
Speaker 1: screws on my hands and my fingers, and now I

934
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:38,040
Speaker 1: have lost the ability to write. Oh is that for

935
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: thumb screws. Yay, I'm thinking of a very medieval interpretation. Okay,

936
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 1: but either way, ripped off you didn't ripped off means

937
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:48,640
Speaker 1: you got robbed. You didn't get robbed. You you made

938
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:51,759
Speaker 1: a deal that you're that you later regretted. But that's

939
00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:57,160
Speaker 1: a dispilimism. It's it's substituting a more negative connotation word

940
00:54:57,640 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: for this originally, you know, more wrecked term, and I

941
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 1: guess that would be kind of on the outskirts of hyperbole,

942
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:05,480
Speaker 1: Like you're not going as far to say this was

943
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 1: highway robbery, but you're getting close. Yeah. But so there

944
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,560
Speaker 1: are just like there are lots of euphemisms in political language,

945
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:15,840
Speaker 1: there's some dysphemisms in it too. Like you might find

946
00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:20,800
Speaker 1: an establishment language, the government itself and and the bureaucracies

947
00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:23,640
Speaker 1: that exist, tend to speak in euphemisms to kind of

948
00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 1: make everything a little a little uh smoothed over and

949
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:31,600
Speaker 1: a little soothing. But meanwhile you might have sort of

950
00:55:31,640 --> 00:55:36,360
Speaker 1: agitators and radical factions tending to speak in dysphemisms, talking

951
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 1: about fairly normal things that you could express in a

952
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:45,080
Speaker 1: fairly straightforward way in these just grandly negative terms yeah,

953
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:48,200
Speaker 1: I think, especially in this Facebook age, everybody can think

954
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:50,960
Speaker 1: of of strong examples of this. You know what, how

955
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 1: is say, the New York Times, uh explaining the situation?

956
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:57,920
Speaker 1: And how is your your your uncle Jim explaining the situation?

957
00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: Where how is the article that he's linking explaining it?

958
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:03,360
Speaker 1: Very likely, I'd say the New York Times is probably

959
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:06,440
Speaker 1: being a little euphemistic. I mean, even even their good writers,

960
00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 1: they tend to be a little euphemistic, just not putting

961
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:12,360
Speaker 1: things in very blunt, harsh terms. They might say, go

962
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: to the restroom. It's the going to the restroom of politics.

963
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:18,759
Speaker 1: But there's plenty of dysphimism out there on the web.

964
00:56:18,800 --> 00:56:20,600
Speaker 1: But anyway, I want to come back to Orwell. So

965
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: the question is sort of, uh so Orwell had these

966
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:31,399
Speaker 1: concerns about euphemisms, about their potential for enabling totalitarianism, and

967
00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: they're they're the threat that they represented to a free

968
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:39,880
Speaker 1: social democracy. So my question is, was Orwell's belief in

969
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:45,480
Speaker 1: the totalitary and potential of vocabulary correct? In some ways?

970
00:56:45,480 --> 00:56:47,360
Speaker 1: I'm sort of inclined to agree with him because the

971
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:50,320
Speaker 1: examples he gives very much makes sense to me. By

972
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:54,160
Speaker 1: by using this sort of d natured, sanitized language to

973
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:58,319
Speaker 1: talk about killing people and you know, doing things that

974
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:02,560
Speaker 1: are very harsh and rule and have real bloody realities

975
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:06,040
Speaker 1: and you know, down in the dirt of reality. I'm

976
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:09,120
Speaker 1: sure it makes it easier for people to assent to

977
00:57:09,200 --> 00:57:11,839
Speaker 1: these things, to to sort of just go along with it.

978
00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 1: We've we've found some nice words for it. But then again, um,

979
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:19,760
Speaker 1: there are other strong arguments that sort of go against

980
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 1: the idea that vocabulary has this much power over our thinking.

981
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:27,560
Speaker 1: And I guess we can maybe address these after a break.

982
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:28,840
Speaker 1: Do you want to take a break. Let's take a

983
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:30,760
Speaker 1: quick break and we come back. We'll talk about the

984
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:34,320
Speaker 1: euphemism treadmill as well as the the war Fian view,

985
00:57:34,880 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: uh and the work of Stephen Pinker. So we were

986
00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:48,480
Speaker 1: talking about whether this totalitarian potential of vocabulary control is correct.

987
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 1: Do words really have this much power to control the

988
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: way we think? Does language determined thought? So as Ling

989
00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:59,440
Speaker 1: with Stephen Pinker has pointed out, the the or Willian

990
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:02,280
Speaker 1: view is really kind of based in what's referred to

991
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 1: as the war Fian view. This is the work of

992
00:58:04,560 --> 00:58:08,080
Speaker 1: American linguists Benjamin Lee Wharf, no relation to the klingon

993
00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 1: that different spell like I believe, also often known as

994
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 1: the sapiar wharf hypothesis. Yes, and uh, he to give

995
00:58:15,080 --> 00:58:18,680
Speaker 1: you a timeline for him, he was through one. That's

996
00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:22,480
Speaker 1: when he was alive. And uh yeah, so his his

997
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:26,480
Speaker 1: argument and then therefore or Will's argument is yes, language,

998
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:29,640
Speaker 1: Uh we we language is how we think. We think

999
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 1: in a language is the like the bare bones, language

1000
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:35,760
Speaker 1: is the operating for the operating system for the human brain. View,

1001
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:39,080
Speaker 1: But a lot of cognitive neuroscience now says, I don't

1002
00:58:39,160 --> 00:58:41,520
Speaker 1: know if that view is correct. In fact, it's probably

1003
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:45,520
Speaker 1: not right now, I will say this, Uh, this is

1004
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 1: an important fact to keep in mind about language is

1005
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:52,520
Speaker 1: that while spoken language comes to us naturally we're exposed

1006
00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: who are growing up. We simply absorbed the words that

1007
00:58:55,240 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 1: fill our world multiple languages even Um, it's not the

1008
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:02,200
Speaker 1: same with written language. Written language takes work. We have

1009
00:59:02,240 --> 00:59:05,000
Speaker 1: to trick our brains early on in order to avoid

1010
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:08,440
Speaker 1: backwards letters. The dB confusion because our brains inherently try

1011
00:59:08,480 --> 00:59:12,440
Speaker 1: to decipher symbols and letters is three dimensional objects. I

1012
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 1: never thought about that. Yeah, it's uh, I was reading

1013
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: or listening to something about that recently. Uh. The point, however,

1014
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:22,000
Speaker 1: here is that that written language is kind of a lie.

1015
00:59:22,360 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 1: So grammar rules, dictionaries, all these attempt to chain that

1016
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 1: which is free, to solidify the inherently fluid nature of language. Uh.

1017
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 1: Certainly humans have been saying the same things for a

1018
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:35,520
Speaker 1: very long time and will continue to say say the

1019
00:59:35,560 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 1: same horrible things. But how we say them changes the

1020
00:59:39,080 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 1: individual words, the cultural weight of those words. Um, and

1021
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:44,720
Speaker 1: I often think of think of this in terms of

1022
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 1: weighted stones placed upon a sheet. Okay, like a sheet

1023
00:59:49,120 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 1: that's held taught by into Yeah. Um. This is an

1024
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:56,400
Speaker 1: exercise that's frequently used to demonstrate how massive planetary objects

1025
00:59:56,640 --> 01:00:00,680
Speaker 1: bend uh An exert gravitational forces. It's like the sheet

1026
01:00:00,680 --> 01:00:03,240
Speaker 1: of space time and a rock is an object with

1027
01:00:03,320 --> 01:00:08,440
Speaker 1: massy But instead of each stone being um, you know, planet,

1028
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 1: each stone is a word. And unlike actual stones, and

1029
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:16,280
Speaker 1: unlike words as we might experience them in a dictionary,

1030
01:00:16,800 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 1: the weights change. So this is where we get into

1031
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:23,640
Speaker 1: this idea that Stephen Pinker gives us, the idea of

1032
01:00:23,680 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 1: the euphemism treadmill, the linguistic process by which euphemisms often

1033
01:00:29,200 --> 01:00:33,960
Speaker 1: become taboo or offensive. So a euphemism is originally created

1034
01:00:34,160 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: in order to avoid having to say the taboo or

1035
01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:41,720
Speaker 1: offensive or uncomfortable thing. But then in time the euphemism

1036
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:45,800
Speaker 1: itself takes on the properties of that original word you

1037
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:48,040
Speaker 1: were trying to avoid. Yeah, have you ever played a

1038
01:00:48,080 --> 01:00:51,600
Speaker 1: platform video game where your character has to jump onto

1039
01:00:52,200 --> 01:00:54,360
Speaker 1: a pillar and once you stand on the pillar, it

1040
01:00:54,360 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 1: begins to sink down the muck. You have to jump

1041
01:00:57,600 --> 01:00:59,680
Speaker 1: to the next pillar and that starts doing the same thing.

1042
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:02,400
Speaker 1: And this is how you have to cross this entire

1043
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:05,200
Speaker 1: expanse of muck. You've got to keep moving. Yeah, that's

1044
01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:08,640
Speaker 1: basically what's going on here with the euphemism treadmill. Polite language,

1045
01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:12,000
Speaker 1: you had to keep moving, Pinker says. Quote. The euphemism

1046
01:01:12,040 --> 01:01:15,520
Speaker 1: treadmill shows that concepts, not words, are in charge. Give

1047
01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:18,160
Speaker 1: a concept a new name, and the name becomes colored

1048
01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:22,120
Speaker 1: by the concept. The concept does not become freshened by

1049
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:25,440
Speaker 1: the name. So he gives examples of like the progression

1050
01:01:25,480 --> 01:01:29,760
Speaker 1: of terminology for people with disabilities. Uh. So he starts

1051
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:32,760
Speaker 1: with the idea that crippled. Originally that was not an

1052
01:01:32,800 --> 01:01:36,840
Speaker 1: offensive term. That was a polite term right to describe

1053
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:40,520
Speaker 1: somebody who had a disability, but it took on negative connotations.

1054
01:01:40,560 --> 01:01:43,440
Speaker 1: People began to use it as a mean word to

1055
01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: say about people. So then that was moved on and

1056
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:48,800
Speaker 1: so so we no longer say that, and now we

1057
01:01:48,840 --> 01:01:54,320
Speaker 1: have handicapped. But then that also eventually became perceived as

1058
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:57,920
Speaker 1: sort of like stale as a euphemism, I guess, And this,

1059
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:00,680
Speaker 1: I guess it started to take on some of the

1060
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:04,240
Speaker 1: negative connotations that crippled had acquired, and then moved on

1061
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:08,800
Speaker 1: to disabled, And so you've got thinking differently. Abled is

1062
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:10,720
Speaker 1: is more of the current version, Like we've moved on

1063
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:13,160
Speaker 1: again to another pillar in the right. So you can

1064
01:02:13,280 --> 01:02:16,280
Speaker 1: so on one hand, just if you're looking from the outside,

1065
01:02:16,280 --> 01:02:19,240
Speaker 1: you'd be like constantly moving words around. That seems kind

1066
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:23,000
Speaker 1: of ridiculous, but it's not when you consider how usage

1067
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:27,040
Speaker 1: of words happens and how language works. Yeah, I mean people,

1068
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 1: if people are using a word with negative connotations, eventually

1069
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:33,720
Speaker 1: people who want to use that word with positive connotations

1070
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:37,080
Speaker 1: will want a different word. Yeah. Another great example of

1071
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:40,080
Speaker 1: this that's a cided is the use of idiot or

1072
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 1: more on. These used to be neutral terms, right, They

1073
01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:47,840
Speaker 1: weren't insults, right, but over time they became they became insults,

1074
01:02:47,840 --> 01:02:49,840
Speaker 1: and now they are very much an insult and also

1075
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:52,520
Speaker 1: an idiot or moron. You're using an insult, you're not

1076
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:56,440
Speaker 1: using a neutral term. So we went from that too retarded,

1077
01:02:56,760 --> 01:02:59,080
Speaker 1: which at for like, it feels weird to say it

1078
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:02,120
Speaker 1: because it now is the R word unless you're you know,

1079
01:03:02,280 --> 01:03:06,760
Speaker 1: using it in very particular circumstances. Um. But but this

1080
01:03:06,840 --> 01:03:10,840
Speaker 1: was this was neutral, and then it became an obscene term. Uh.

1081
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:13,600
Speaker 1: And then from here we went to mentally mentally challenged

1082
01:03:13,920 --> 01:03:17,720
Speaker 1: and special. But even these I feel are degraded, uh

1083
01:03:17,760 --> 01:03:21,000
Speaker 1: to a large degree, especially special, like to say someone special.

1084
01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:24,080
Speaker 1: I can I can't think of any specific examples, but

1085
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 1: I believe I've heard that used at least flippantly, if

1086
01:03:26,280 --> 01:03:28,840
Speaker 1: not as an outright offense. Oh yeah, it is the

1087
01:03:28,960 --> 01:03:32,440
Speaker 1: thing mean kids say. Now, like a mean kid wants

1088
01:03:32,480 --> 01:03:35,840
Speaker 1: to they'll they'll call another kid special. Children if you're

1089
01:03:35,840 --> 01:03:37,840
Speaker 1: out there listening, I don't know why children are listening to,

1090
01:03:38,080 --> 01:03:40,960
Speaker 1: but you should not see the children. That's not very nice.

1091
01:03:41,520 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, again, it shows that as soon as so

1092
01:03:44,160 --> 01:03:46,160
Speaker 1: you come up with. And I'd be interested to see

1093
01:03:46,200 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 1: if somebody could create a a like time lag model

1094
01:03:50,600 --> 01:03:55,040
Speaker 1: of this, like how long after a new non offensive

1095
01:03:55,560 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 1: term is introduced, does it take before that term takes

1096
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:02,880
Speaker 1: on some pleasant connotations, people start using it as a

1097
01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:06,400
Speaker 1: term of insult or abuse, and people who want to

1098
01:04:06,440 --> 01:04:09,840
Speaker 1: speak politely feel like they need a new term. How

1099
01:04:09,880 --> 01:04:12,560
Speaker 1: long does it generally take? Yeah? Another example of this,

1100
01:04:12,640 --> 01:04:15,600
Speaker 1: I think would be in business. So we already talked

1101
01:04:15,600 --> 01:04:20,920
Speaker 1: about the robust use of euthanisms in the business environment,

1102
01:04:21,480 --> 01:04:24,880
Speaker 1: but also think about the buzzwords, right, those buzz words.

1103
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:27,600
Speaker 1: They gotta have buzz or they're not buzzwords, and buzzwords

1104
01:04:27,600 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 1: inherently lose their buzz. So you know, everybody might be

1105
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:34,000
Speaker 1: talking about the I can't. I can't even think of

1106
01:04:34,000 --> 01:04:35,960
Speaker 1: what the most recent one has been in our circles.

1107
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:37,960
Speaker 1: But to take an older one, like there was a

1108
01:04:38,000 --> 01:04:41,880
Speaker 1: time when when innovation, innovation or storytelling, we are all

1109
01:04:41,920 --> 01:04:44,880
Speaker 1: story storytelling is the one. I hate that these words

1110
01:04:44,880 --> 01:04:48,240
Speaker 1: have been completely destroyed, but I believe they have. We

1111
01:04:48,320 --> 01:04:52,120
Speaker 1: need we need we need new words and storytelling. Come on,

1112
01:04:52,240 --> 01:04:56,040
Speaker 1: I love stories. Stories are like my favorite thing on earth.

1113
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:59,120
Speaker 1: But when I hear when I hear business leaders talking

1114
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:02,240
Speaker 1: about story to telling, I'm like, well, okay, we can't,

1115
01:05:02,280 --> 01:05:05,320
Speaker 1: we can't describe it like that anymore. Yeah. Yeah, because it,

1116
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 1: it ends up losing. It loses it's it's punch, It

1117
01:05:09,600 --> 01:05:11,880
Speaker 1: loses its value in a sense, it loses its holiness.

1118
01:05:12,600 --> 01:05:15,000
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Yeah, it does lose its holiness. And it

1119
01:05:15,080 --> 01:05:18,720
Speaker 1: also comes to stop referring to the thing it originally

1120
01:05:18,760 --> 01:05:22,320
Speaker 1: referred to. Yeah, when it basically just means like any

1121
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:26,120
Speaker 1: talking in any talking or writing or or any kind

1122
01:05:26,120 --> 01:05:33,760
Speaker 1: of communication can be storytelling. That's not storytelling. What is storytelling? Yeah, exactly. Now,

1123
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:36,680
Speaker 1: to come back to the euphemism treadmill real quick, I

1124
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:39,080
Speaker 1: also want to point out that I have seen it

1125
01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:43,160
Speaker 1: argue that this is essentially, uh, this essentially lines up

1126
01:05:43,200 --> 01:05:46,400
Speaker 1: with Gresham's law Gresham's law in economics, which states that

1127
01:05:46,480 --> 01:05:49,360
Speaker 1: bad money drives out the good. This is a name

1128
01:05:49,400 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 1: for Sir Thomas Gresham, the financial agent of Queen Elizabeth

1129
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:56,320
Speaker 1: the First and the idea here was that if some

1130
01:05:56,400 --> 01:05:59,000
Speaker 1: coins in circulation are pure pure silver and others are

1131
01:05:59,080 --> 01:06:01,120
Speaker 1: less pure, people they are going to spend the bad

1132
01:06:01,160 --> 01:06:03,200
Speaker 1: coins if they're gonna keep the good ones for themselves.

1133
01:06:03,280 --> 01:06:05,560
Speaker 1: So what do you know? Yeah, so that that makes

1134
01:06:05,600 --> 01:06:09,800
Speaker 1: sense to me. Yeah, that that correlation with the euphemism treadmill.

1135
01:06:09,840 --> 01:06:13,120
Speaker 1: But also you have a note here Robert about a

1136
01:06:13,160 --> 01:06:16,080
Speaker 1: different kind of treadmill that I found interesting. Yeah, we've

1137
01:06:16,080 --> 01:06:20,000
Speaker 1: already mentioned dispihemisms. There is a dispipanism treadmill as well.

1138
01:06:20,960 --> 01:06:25,640
Speaker 1: And the example that that comes up is that sucks.

1139
01:06:26,280 --> 01:06:30,920
Speaker 1: That sucks stems from a a more specific statement that

1140
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:32,840
Speaker 1: is also still in use, but a more offensive one.

1141
01:06:33,120 --> 01:06:36,880
Speaker 1: You can say something sucks and it's you know, it's

1142
01:06:36,880 --> 01:06:39,440
Speaker 1: in kids TV shows, but you know it's it's on

1143
01:06:39,640 --> 01:06:42,720
Speaker 1: you know, whatever is on Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network during

1144
01:06:42,760 --> 01:06:45,720
Speaker 1: the day when children are watching, but they're they're not

1145
01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:48,400
Speaker 1: going to say what something is sucking. Yeah. When I

1146
01:06:48,440 --> 01:06:51,040
Speaker 1: was a kid, I remember saying that sucks, thinking it

1147
01:06:51,120 --> 01:06:56,120
Speaker 1: was a totally non offensive phrase, and having a teacher, Uh,

1148
01:06:56,200 --> 01:06:58,520
Speaker 1: tell me, you know, if I had said that word,

1149
01:06:58,560 --> 01:07:00,440
Speaker 1: it would have been like I said a word that

1150
01:07:00,560 --> 01:07:04,640
Speaker 1: rhymes with it. That was what Uh. He was saying

1151
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:08,000
Speaker 1: that that that is a really really offensive term. But

1152
01:07:08,080 --> 01:07:09,800
Speaker 1: it wasn't like that to me, and it was that

1153
01:07:10,160 --> 01:07:14,920
Speaker 1: it had lost its dysphemistic qualities. Yeah, and it's one

1154
01:07:14,920 --> 01:07:17,080
Speaker 1: of those two when you start peeling out apart, it's like,

1155
01:07:17,080 --> 01:07:19,120
Speaker 1: why is that a stay? Why is that bad? I

1156
01:07:19,160 --> 01:07:22,320
Speaker 1: don't know's we get, we get all our sexual politics

1157
01:07:22,320 --> 01:07:25,560
Speaker 1: wrapped up in in in how you feel about the

1158
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:28,400
Speaker 1: latest ex Men movie. Another one I can think of

1159
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:30,280
Speaker 1: that we can edit this out if it's way more

1160
01:07:30,280 --> 01:07:33,680
Speaker 1: offensive than I think. But I think one is the

1161
01:07:33,720 --> 01:07:37,920
Speaker 1: British exploit British English expression bloody, which I think used

1162
01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 1: to be considered incredibly offensive, like a highly offensive expletive,

1163
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:47,040
Speaker 1: and now is an incredibly mild expletive that so much

1164
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:50,320
Speaker 1: so that it can appear in Harry Potter books and stuff. Yeah,

1165
01:07:50,440 --> 01:07:54,200
Speaker 1: I wonder I've never looked into it, but I've often wondered, like,

1166
01:07:54,240 --> 01:07:57,640
Speaker 1: to what extent is it still a little more offensive

1167
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:00,600
Speaker 1: in British circles? And it is an America because so

1168
01:08:00,720 --> 01:08:04,280
Speaker 1: much American usage of it were just aping British usage

1169
01:08:04,320 --> 01:08:08,040
Speaker 1: of it without really having a strong cultural understanding maybe

1170
01:08:08,040 --> 01:08:11,040
Speaker 1: of what is being said. That's a good question. Again,

1171
01:08:11,080 --> 01:08:14,200
Speaker 1: maybe we're yet again doing the cargo cult of euphemism. Yeah,

1172
01:08:14,240 --> 01:08:15,480
Speaker 1: and you kind of get a guess into the like

1173
01:08:15,560 --> 01:08:20,840
Speaker 1: the currency equivalences of of different insults or sorry, this

1174
01:08:20,840 --> 01:08:25,599
Speaker 1: wouldn't be of euphemism is the cargo cult of explodives? Okay,

1175
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:28,439
Speaker 1: but let's come back to what we started talking about

1176
01:08:28,439 --> 01:08:31,080
Speaker 1: with the idea of the Wharfian view and Orwell, so

1177
01:08:31,240 --> 01:08:35,200
Speaker 1: we've got this this other argument from Pinker and from

1178
01:08:35,400 --> 01:08:38,000
Speaker 1: you know, cognitive neuroscience and all this. Who says they say,

1179
01:08:38,040 --> 01:08:41,519
Speaker 1: you know, the words don't really matter actually all that much. Um,

1180
01:08:42,040 --> 01:08:46,040
Speaker 1: words don't have this power. But I I don't feel that.

1181
01:08:46,360 --> 01:08:51,240
Speaker 1: I feel very strongly that Orwell was onto something. Yeah. Yeah,

1182
01:08:51,400 --> 01:08:54,000
Speaker 1: and uh and actually found a paper that gets into

1183
01:08:54,040 --> 01:08:56,000
Speaker 1: this a bit. It's very good as available is readily

1184
01:08:56,000 --> 01:09:00,439
Speaker 1: available online. Two thousand and eight paper by UM by

1185
01:09:00,479 --> 01:09:04,320
Speaker 1: Stanford's Daniel uh Casa Santo has published in the journal

1186
01:09:04,400 --> 01:09:07,960
Speaker 1: Language Learning. Uh And the title is Who's Afraid of

1187
01:09:07,960 --> 01:09:12,519
Speaker 1: the Big Bad Wharf Cross Linguistic differences in temporal language

1188
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:14,880
Speaker 1: and thought. So this is addressing the war Fian view

1189
01:09:14,960 --> 01:09:18,240
Speaker 1: that language in some way determines or influences thought. Yeah,

1190
01:09:18,280 --> 01:09:20,960
Speaker 1: and and it's interesting because he I'm not gonna say

1191
01:09:21,000 --> 01:09:25,600
Speaker 1: he takes a middle of the road approach. It's definitely

1192
01:09:26,080 --> 01:09:28,759
Speaker 1: more in Pinker's direction. He's not saying that the Warfian

1193
01:09:28,840 --> 01:09:32,920
Speaker 1: view is valid completely, but that there that we can't

1194
01:09:33,040 --> 01:09:34,320
Speaker 1: But but what are you saying is that we can't

1195
01:09:34,320 --> 01:09:41,200
Speaker 1: completely dismiss the power of this this Wharfian uh relationship

1196
01:09:41,320 --> 01:09:44,960
Speaker 1: between thoughts and words. Okay, so maybe that words don't

1197
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:50,559
Speaker 1: totally determine thoughts, but they have some kind of influencing relationship. Yes, exactly.

1198
01:09:50,560 --> 01:09:52,240
Speaker 1: In fact, I'll read a just a quick quote from

1199
01:09:52,240 --> 01:09:55,160
Speaker 1: this article to to really drive this home. Why should

1200
01:09:55,200 --> 01:09:58,280
Speaker 1: we continue to do war Fian research? One possible reason

1201
01:09:58,360 --> 01:10:01,840
Speaker 1: is that cataloging cross linguist to cognitive differences could be

1202
01:10:01,880 --> 01:10:05,280
Speaker 1: a step toward charting the boundaries of human biological and

1203
01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:09,120
Speaker 1: cultural diversity. If this is the goal, then the Warpian

1204
01:10:09,160 --> 01:10:13,200
Speaker 1: effects most worth findings should be extreme instances in which

1205
01:10:13,240 --> 01:10:17,760
Speaker 1: differences between languages produced radically different experiences of reality in

1206
01:10:17,800 --> 01:10:23,360
Speaker 1: their speakers. Alternatively, cross linguistic cognitive differences could be tools

1207
01:10:23,360 --> 01:10:27,160
Speaker 1: for investigating how thinking works, and in particular, for investigating

1208
01:10:27,400 --> 01:10:31,439
Speaker 1: the role of experience and the acquisition and representation of knowledge.

1209
01:10:31,720 --> 01:10:36,120
Speaker 1: If people who talk differently from correspondingly different mental representations

1210
01:10:36,160 --> 01:10:40,439
Speaker 1: as a consequence, then mental representations must depend in part

1211
01:10:40,800 --> 01:10:45,240
Speaker 1: on these aspects of linguistic experience. If discovering the origin

1212
01:10:45,320 --> 01:10:48,559
Speaker 1: and structure of our mental representations is the goal, then

1213
01:10:48,640 --> 01:10:53,000
Speaker 1: cross linguistic cognitive differences can be informative, even if they

1214
01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:56,480
Speaker 1: are subtle, and even if their effects are largely unconscious,

1215
01:10:56,720 --> 01:11:00,240
Speaker 1: whether or not they correspond to radical differences and speaks

1216
01:11:00,439 --> 01:11:05,040
Speaker 1: conscious experiences of the world, Warpian effects can have profound

1217
01:11:05,040 --> 01:11:08,320
Speaker 1: applications for the study of mental representation. Okay, so yeah,

1218
01:11:08,320 --> 01:11:10,479
Speaker 1: he is taken. Maybe I would call that a middle view.

1219
01:11:10,920 --> 01:11:14,519
Speaker 1: Even even if he's saying, like the Warfian hypothesis that

1220
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:20,200
Speaker 1: language determines thought is wrong, Uh, there's still influences that

1221
01:11:20,240 --> 01:11:23,840
Speaker 1: are worth investigating. Yeah, yeah, well I would say that. Yeah, yeah,

1222
01:11:23,880 --> 01:11:26,519
Speaker 1: I think that's the that's the point, like that, essentially

1223
01:11:26,520 --> 01:11:31,120
Speaker 1: that language is still too powerful, it's too ubiquitous, it's

1224
01:11:31,400 --> 01:11:33,840
Speaker 1: playing some sort of role. It's we just have to.

1225
01:11:34,000 --> 01:11:36,320
Speaker 1: It's just to what extent and in which cases it's

1226
01:11:36,479 --> 01:11:40,080
Speaker 1: most transformative. Interesting. Well, so I wanted to end by

1227
01:11:40,080 --> 01:11:42,759
Speaker 1: thinking about a little more about what is the effect

1228
01:11:42,840 --> 01:11:45,839
Speaker 1: of using euphemisms on our minds and on our culture,

1229
01:11:46,560 --> 01:11:49,120
Speaker 1: Because when you come up with terms like, you know,

1230
01:11:49,160 --> 01:11:52,680
Speaker 1: the euphemism treadmill, I'm not saying Pinker necessarily meant it

1231
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:55,680
Speaker 1: this way. I detect a little bit of amusement on

1232
01:11:55,760 --> 01:12:00,080
Speaker 1: his part, but I'm not saying he definitely meant it

1233
01:12:00,120 --> 01:12:02,760
Speaker 1: to be a term of derision. But you do get

1234
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:04,800
Speaker 1: this idea of a treadmill being a thing that's sort

1235
01:12:04,800 --> 01:12:09,719
Speaker 1: of like useless cycle. Uh. And it's not necessarily useless

1236
01:12:09,720 --> 01:12:11,840
Speaker 1: according to some thinkers. And I wanted to talk about

1237
01:12:11,840 --> 01:12:15,640
Speaker 1: an essay UH done for aon magazine in twenty sixteen

1238
01:12:15,640 --> 01:12:20,320
Speaker 1: by the Columbia University linguistics professor John mcwarder. And so

1239
01:12:20,439 --> 01:12:24,000
Speaker 1: he starts by recognizing Pinker's concept of the euphemism treadmill,

1240
01:12:24,040 --> 01:12:26,840
Speaker 1: and he gives a lot of really great examples of

1241
01:12:26,880 --> 01:12:29,559
Speaker 1: these types of treadmills throughout history. Like we talked about.

1242
01:12:29,600 --> 01:12:32,280
Speaker 1: He he talks about the evolution of the concept of

1243
01:12:32,320 --> 01:12:37,320
Speaker 1: welfare UM welfare originally being like uh, you know, home

1244
01:12:37,479 --> 01:12:42,559
Speaker 1: assistance and then welfare and then cash assistance, where each

1245
01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:45,600
Speaker 1: time there's a new term, it sort of starts to

1246
01:12:45,680 --> 01:12:50,640
Speaker 1: take on mean classist connotations, and then you need a

1247
01:12:50,680 --> 01:12:53,840
Speaker 1: new term because it starts to be used as a

1248
01:12:53,960 --> 01:12:57,360
Speaker 1: term of abuse. But for mcward this, he says, this

1249
01:12:57,400 --> 01:13:01,240
Speaker 1: treadmill is not only inevitable but much good in in

1250
01:13:01,320 --> 01:13:05,720
Speaker 1: his words, a healthy process necessary in view of the

1251
01:13:05,720 --> 01:13:10,040
Speaker 1: eternal gulf between language and opinion. UH. And He says,

1252
01:13:10,080 --> 01:13:13,360
Speaker 1: basically that thought changes more slowly than word usage, but

1253
01:13:13,520 --> 01:13:17,000
Speaker 1: it eventually catches up. And this requires that in a

1254
01:13:17,080 --> 01:13:20,880
Speaker 1: civilized society, people are going to frequently want to change

1255
01:13:20,920 --> 01:13:25,040
Speaker 1: their euphemisms. It's an inevitable thing, and it reflects people's

1256
01:13:25,120 --> 01:13:29,080
Speaker 1: desire to be polite and civilized toward one another, except

1257
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:31,000
Speaker 1: of course, on the Internet, where one does not have

1258
01:13:31,080 --> 01:13:33,640
Speaker 1: to be polite or civil But that's that's kind of

1259
01:13:33,720 --> 01:13:36,479
Speaker 1: that's a whole separate discussion right there. Right, of course,

1260
01:13:36,520 --> 01:13:39,080
Speaker 1: you're always going to have people who want to defy.

1261
01:13:39,280 --> 01:13:43,920
Speaker 1: But it near his conclusion, he says, quote, the euphemism treadmill, then,

1262
01:13:44,360 --> 01:13:48,840
Speaker 1: is neither just a form of bureaucratese nor of identity politics.

1263
01:13:48,960 --> 01:13:51,280
Speaker 1: It is a symptom of the fact that, however much

1264
01:13:51,320 --> 01:13:54,280
Speaker 1: we would like it to be otherwise, it's easier to

1265
01:13:54,439 --> 01:13:58,280
Speaker 1: change language than to change thought. In a sense, it's

1266
01:13:58,320 --> 01:14:01,400
Speaker 1: like you're you're simply asking someone, look, I know you're

1267
01:14:01,439 --> 01:14:04,920
Speaker 1: not going to stop being awful anytime soon, but if

1268
01:14:04,960 --> 01:14:08,200
Speaker 1: you could at least use language that doesn't, you know,

1269
01:14:08,280 --> 01:14:11,400
Speaker 1: wear your awfulness on your sleeve, and that would be great,

1270
01:14:11,560 --> 01:14:16,160
Speaker 1: and maybe in time that outward decency will will bleed

1271
01:14:16,280 --> 01:14:19,880
Speaker 1: through to some semblance of interdecency. Right, yeah, yeah, I

1272
01:14:19,880 --> 01:14:24,000
Speaker 1: guess so. Like again, earlier, we talked about euphemisms being

1273
01:14:24,000 --> 01:14:27,439
Speaker 1: a pain killer or also being a lubricant, and in

1274
01:14:27,439 --> 01:14:29,599
Speaker 1: the sense it might be both of those things. Maybe

1275
01:14:30,120 --> 01:14:34,040
Speaker 1: euphemisms or or finding a nicer new word for a

1276
01:14:34,080 --> 01:14:37,559
Speaker 1: word that is taken on negative connotations. If that's what

1277
01:14:37,600 --> 01:14:41,920
Speaker 1: a euphemism is, I guess um. It might not solve

1278
01:14:41,960 --> 01:14:45,559
Speaker 1: the underlying problem. It might not fix people's attitudes, but

1279
01:14:45,760 --> 01:14:49,320
Speaker 1: it might just be exactly what it seems like. It's

1280
01:14:49,320 --> 01:14:52,439
Speaker 1: a lubricant, it's a pain killer. It makes interacting in

1281
01:14:52,520 --> 01:14:56,040
Speaker 1: society easier, makes people get along a little bit better.

1282
01:14:56,640 --> 01:14:58,559
Speaker 1: I can't help but think of the term African American.

1283
01:14:58,760 --> 01:15:02,120
Speaker 1: The adoption of that term m H to replace various

1284
01:15:02,120 --> 01:15:08,000
Speaker 1: other terms for uh, you know, black American citizens uh

1285
01:15:08,160 --> 01:15:10,160
Speaker 1: has that you know it. It drives home the fact

1286
01:15:10,240 --> 01:15:13,360
Speaker 1: that this is your fellow American, This is a this

1287
01:15:13,439 --> 01:15:16,680
Speaker 1: is an American, and they have a particular origin, just

1288
01:15:16,960 --> 01:15:22,320
Speaker 1: as you and your uh you know, Caucasian or or

1289
01:15:22,360 --> 01:15:25,479
Speaker 1: Asian or what have you, Just as as your your

1290
01:15:25,520 --> 01:15:28,880
Speaker 1: family has an origin somewhere else as well, Like they

1291
01:15:28,880 --> 01:15:32,559
Speaker 1: are these individuals are are not that different from you.

1292
01:15:33,080 --> 01:15:35,920
Speaker 1: So do you think that that term actually helps people

1293
01:15:36,040 --> 01:15:38,479
Speaker 1: change their way of thinking? Or is it just this

1294
01:15:38,880 --> 01:15:41,680
Speaker 1: just this lubricant that makes it easier to live in

1295
01:15:41,720 --> 01:15:46,120
Speaker 1: a polite society and get along with each other. I

1296
01:15:46,120 --> 01:15:48,840
Speaker 1: don't know, I guess I hope. I like to think

1297
01:15:48,880 --> 01:15:51,320
Speaker 1: I would prefer to live in a world where the

1298
01:15:51,800 --> 01:15:55,840
Speaker 1: language changes the way you think that in in in

1299
01:15:55,840 --> 01:16:00,800
Speaker 1: in having to call an individual something more humanized, uh,

1300
01:16:00,880 --> 01:16:03,840
Speaker 1: that eventually you will see them in more human terms.

1301
01:16:05,320 --> 01:16:07,160
Speaker 1: But then again, I don't think any of us believe

1302
01:16:07,240 --> 01:16:10,559
Speaker 1: that language alone is the sole operator here, like that

1303
01:16:10,600 --> 01:16:12,760
Speaker 1: it has to has to come as part of a

1304
01:16:12,880 --> 01:16:18,080
Speaker 1: larger suite of of social change instruments. So yeah, I

1305
01:16:18,080 --> 01:16:21,000
Speaker 1: think i'd agree with that and with what mcwardour is saying.

1306
01:16:21,040 --> 01:16:23,000
Speaker 1: But I guess the flip side of it is that

1307
01:16:23,040 --> 01:16:25,760
Speaker 1: we're accepting some truth of what Orwell is saying, and

1308
01:16:25,840 --> 01:16:29,400
Speaker 1: that many cases euphemisms are also going to corrupt clarity

1309
01:16:29,439 --> 01:16:33,360
Speaker 1: of thought, make us sort of dull and irresolute, and

1310
01:16:33,360 --> 01:16:37,240
Speaker 1: and make it harder for us to resist evil. And

1311
01:16:37,320 --> 01:16:40,840
Speaker 1: so maybe maybe the case is not about whether euphemisms

1312
01:16:40,840 --> 01:16:43,240
Speaker 1: are good or bad, but just that some euphemisms are

1313
01:16:43,280 --> 01:16:46,800
Speaker 1: more worthy than others, I think so. Yeah. I mean,

1314
01:16:47,840 --> 01:16:52,200
Speaker 1: words are powerful, and the right euphemisms are also powerful.

1315
01:16:52,640 --> 01:16:54,960
Speaker 1: So all you can do is hope that you know,

1316
01:16:54,960 --> 01:16:57,400
Speaker 1: whoever is in a position of power has the best

1317
01:16:57,479 --> 01:17:02,960
Speaker 1: words at their disposal. And on that cheerful note, let's

1318
01:17:03,200 --> 01:17:07,360
Speaker 1: let's end by just discussing a few favorite euphemisms. What

1319
01:17:07,640 --> 01:17:11,400
Speaker 1: are some of yours, Joe, I love how you'll see

1320
01:17:11,400 --> 01:17:14,639
Speaker 1: this a lot in Europe. The bathroom, which is itself

1321
01:17:14,680 --> 01:17:19,080
Speaker 1: a euphemism, is the WC that has just been reduced

1322
01:17:19,160 --> 01:17:22,320
Speaker 1: to a couple of letters, like not even water closet W.

1323
01:17:23,920 --> 01:17:28,760
Speaker 1: I like that, like w C. Fields Um. I don't

1324
01:17:28,800 --> 01:17:32,080
Speaker 1: know if it's quite a euphemism, but I have always

1325
01:17:32,120 --> 01:17:35,519
Speaker 1: been fond of the I believe. I don't know if

1326
01:17:35,520 --> 01:17:38,280
Speaker 1: he invented the phrase, but it certainly shows up in

1327
01:17:38,320 --> 01:17:44,240
Speaker 1: Shakespeare's Othello making the Beast with two backs as a euphemism,

1328
01:17:44,360 --> 01:17:47,960
Speaker 1: or or perhaps the opposite for sexual intercourse. I don't

1329
01:17:47,960 --> 01:17:51,360
Speaker 1: know if that's a euphemism. That's fairly expressive. It's it's

1330
01:17:51,400 --> 01:17:54,240
Speaker 1: ex expressive, but it all, but it definitely changes the

1331
01:17:54,880 --> 01:17:58,320
Speaker 1: meaning of the thing. Like uh, I don't know, I

1332
01:17:58,360 --> 01:18:00,320
Speaker 1: guess it comes down to would you are there cases

1333
01:18:00,320 --> 01:18:03,200
Speaker 1: where you would say making the beasts with two backs

1334
01:18:04,040 --> 01:18:07,479
Speaker 1: and it would be more polite than saying they were

1335
01:18:07,520 --> 01:18:10,280
Speaker 1: having sexual intercourse, they were having sex. I don't think

1336
01:18:10,320 --> 01:18:12,680
Speaker 1: that's the case. It's there must be another word for

1337
01:18:12,720 --> 01:18:15,160
Speaker 1: whatever that type of thing is where you have a

1338
01:18:15,200 --> 01:18:17,760
Speaker 1: word or a phrase that means the same thing as

1339
01:18:17,800 --> 01:18:21,360
Speaker 1: something else, and it's not more polite, but it's just

1340
01:18:21,560 --> 01:18:25,040
Speaker 1: like more I don't know, funnier, like making whoopie. I

1341
01:18:25,040 --> 01:18:27,479
Speaker 1: think that would be an example, because whoopy is like whoopy,

1342
01:18:27,640 --> 01:18:29,920
Speaker 1: it's it's fun. It's like if you were just okay,

1343
01:18:29,960 --> 01:18:33,120
Speaker 1: here the three choices. Imagine you're in a roommate scenario

1344
01:18:33,280 --> 01:18:34,880
Speaker 1: and you have to say, oh, I walked in on

1345
01:18:34,920 --> 01:18:39,599
Speaker 1: my roommate, and um, he and his partner were making

1346
01:18:39,600 --> 01:18:42,120
Speaker 1: the beast with two backs like that, or if you

1347
01:18:42,160 --> 01:18:44,439
Speaker 1: were to say, well, I walked in on my my

1348
01:18:44,560 --> 01:18:48,240
Speaker 1: roommate and he and his partner were making whoopie. Like

1349
01:18:48,240 --> 01:18:52,040
Speaker 1: which of the two. But the two summoned vastly different images.

1350
01:18:52,160 --> 01:18:57,479
Speaker 1: They're both highly polite, yes, incredibly generous. All right, Well,

1351
01:18:58,160 --> 01:19:00,200
Speaker 1: I know everybody out there has their favorite. You've mis

1352
01:19:00,320 --> 01:19:03,759
Speaker 1: ms and uh, and certainly some some cross cultural examples

1353
01:19:03,800 --> 01:19:07,280
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear, so you should definitely reach out

1354
01:19:07,280 --> 01:19:09,560
Speaker 1: to us about them. You can find us in a

1355
01:19:09,640 --> 01:19:11,640
Speaker 1: number of places, but the best starting point is to

1356
01:19:11,760 --> 01:19:13,160
Speaker 1: just go head on over to stuff to Blow your

1357
01:19:13,200 --> 01:19:15,839
Speaker 1: Mind dot com because that's where you'll find this podcast episode,

1358
01:19:16,120 --> 01:19:19,200
Speaker 1: all the other podcast episodes. You will find blog post videos,

1359
01:19:19,200 --> 01:19:21,599
Speaker 1: and links out to our various social media accounts such

1360
01:19:21,640 --> 01:19:27,800
Speaker 1: as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, uh, Tumbler. Wherever you do your

1361
01:19:27,920 --> 01:19:32,360
Speaker 1: social media media being, you will find us. And if

1362
01:19:32,360 --> 01:19:34,320
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us directly, you

1363
01:19:34,320 --> 01:19:36,680
Speaker 1: can always email us that blow the Mind at how

1364
01:19:36,720 --> 01:19:49,080
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

1365
01:19:49,120 --> 01:19:57,160
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.

1366
01:19:59,720 --> 01:20:06,760
Speaker 1: Love My the Bus is a busy many joint to

1367
01:20:06,800 --> 01:20:11,360
Speaker 1: four joint part par part Far Far