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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about my favorite scene in the

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Speaker 1: movie bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: there's never a bad time to discuss, uh that that

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Speaker 1: particular interpretation of Dracula. It is a great one, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: It's like horrible, but it's also great. It has some

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Speaker 1: wonderful design in it. I love the suit of armor,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, and I love some of the painted

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Speaker 1: backdrops and stuff. But there's a great scene where so

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Speaker 1: you know the basic story of Dracula. These characters are

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Speaker 1: in I think late Victorian England and Dracula, Count Dracula

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Speaker 1: comes to England from Transylvania and begins feeding on the

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Speaker 1: locals in England. And uh, there is the character Van Helsing,

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Speaker 1: the Van vampire slayer, a man of great wisdom. And

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Speaker 1: in the bram Stoker's Dracula France Ford couple of version,

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Speaker 1: he has played by Anthony Hopkins in a wonderfully weird,

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Speaker 1: hyperactive performance. Uh. And there's a scene where the main

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Speaker 1: character's friend Lucy has been turned into a vampire by

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Speaker 1: Count Dracula, and Van Helsing and his associates have just

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Speaker 1: come back from slaying the vampire version of their friend

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Speaker 1: Lucy and the character Mina Harker played in the movie

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Speaker 1: by win Owner writer. She asks how did Lucy die?

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Speaker 1: Was she in great pain? And Anthony Hopkins as Van

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Speaker 1: Helsing says, yes, she was in great pain. Then we

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Speaker 1: cut off our head, drove a stake through her heart

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Speaker 1: and then burned it. And then she found peace. And

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Speaker 1: I always love that because of the last line at

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Speaker 1: the end there and then she found peace. Yeah, everything

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Speaker 1: else is thoroughly non euphemistic. It's pretty straightforward. These are

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Speaker 1: the steps we took to to tear her corpse apart

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Speaker 1: to to kill her her undead uh 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. That's

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Speaker 1: it's why it's such a wonderful comic moment. 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 gonna go poop and wash my hands,

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna come back, and then I'm gonna fish

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

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Speaker 1: that during dinner party? Yeah? No, no, like if an

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

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Speaker 1: mind or just we're the most uncouth first and 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 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 it. Yeah, I'm

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

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Speaker 1: anyone use that I'm gonna 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 restroom and I'll be right back visit like you're

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: just stare in the mirror without blinking. Yeah, but I'm

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: to do euphemistically that you you're used to talking more bluntly,

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Speaker 1: maybe with your spouse or partner, but but once a

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

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Speaker 1: used to. Well, it's interesting. There's a lot of there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of back and forth too with kids regarding

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Speaker 1: especially euthanisms regarding the human body, because some parents will

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Speaker 1: we'll fall into this habit of using like cutes here

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Speaker 1: less uh less accurate terminology for parts of the body,

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Speaker 1: particularly genitalia, which I always find creepy when I hear

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Speaker 1: no offense to parents who do that. I'm not actually

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Speaker 1: judging you, and that's just my instinctual reaction hearing like

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

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Speaker 1: try not to do that in our household. I mean

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

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Speaker 1: by all means, but yeah, we try and say, all right, penis, testicles,

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Speaker 1: um et cetera. Because you know, I feel it's important

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Speaker 1: for them to have an accurate understanding of their body

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Speaker 1: and then to be able to describe their body, uh seriously,

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Speaker 1: to say, you know a physician. Yeah, if they needed

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Speaker 1: to talk to a doctor, they would need the correct terms.

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Speaker 1: But but that's an area where in parenting circles people

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Speaker 1: kind of go on your arguments on both sides. Do

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Speaker 1: you do you ever find yourself like wanting to curse

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Speaker 1: in front of the child, but you have to find

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Speaker 1: an other word. Oh yeah, all the time. Sometimes I

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Speaker 1: don't find that other word. Um uh this morning, even

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Speaker 1: driving through traffic, and my son reminded me, said, they

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Speaker 1: can't hear you. I guess the other drivers cannot hear me.

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Speaker 1: That is a perceptive kid. Yeah, But but I try.

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Speaker 1: I do try and use certain euphemisms or just it's

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Speaker 1: almost easier for me to just come up with a

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Speaker 1: nonsense word, so referring to other drivers as dumbledoors or

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

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Speaker 1: good because they're kind of scuttling around back and forth

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Speaker 1: right a side and stead of going in straight lines. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Like I find that easier to do because sometimes it's

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: profane words from a vocabulary, and there's something about a

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

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Speaker 1: it seems to 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. Gang is not gonna not gonna got not

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

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Speaker 1: So euphemisms in our house, Uh, my wife Rachel and

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Speaker 1: I get a lot of enjoyment out of talking about

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Speaker 1: our dog in un euphemistic terms when people normally would so.

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Speaker 1: One example, when our dog's legs and jaws are jerking

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Speaker 1: in his sleep, you know he's having a little doggie dreams.

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Speaker 1: I think many dog owners would be inclined to say, oh,

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Speaker 1: he's dreaming about chasing something. But we would say, oh,

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

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Speaker 1: about killing little animals. Yeah, that's that's that, that's true. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess I do a certain amount of that with

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Speaker 1: our our our pet as well. I'll give one more

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Speaker 1: example though, about about raising a child and euphemisms, is

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Speaker 1: that sometimes you still do not succeed in really driving

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Speaker 1: home the names for things, and without the proper term,

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Speaker 1: sometimes the like the children's name for it is going

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Speaker 1: to be totally even more unsuitable. So I don't think

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Speaker 1: I drove home properly. You know what the anus is

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Speaker 1: to my son. And so one day we had some

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Speaker 1: people guests to the house and this is something he

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Speaker 1: hadn't even met before, but he walked outside, just got

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Speaker 1: it from the nap, and he probably announces, quote, uh,

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Speaker 1: it itches where poop comes out on my bum and uh.

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Speaker 1: And I think, arguably, like this, this is a more

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Speaker 1: uncouth statement. Grantedies four and a half, so nobody cares,

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Speaker 1: but still it would be more accurate to say my

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Speaker 1: anus itches. Right. But in a way what he said

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Speaker 1: was euphemism. Really it's an anti euphemism, and we'll get

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Speaker 1: into that in a in a bit the the euphemism

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Speaker 1: is actually cuter there in the situation where a kid

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Speaker 1: says it. If it's true 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 it itches on my bum where poop

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Speaker 1: comes out, then that, you know, you would call the

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Speaker 1: authorities exactly. Okay, So, uh, let's zoom in on the

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Speaker 1: concept of the euphemism and try to figure out what

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Speaker 1: it does, what is its role in language apart from

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Speaker 1: the obvious. Now we we did say that it's essentially

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Speaker 1: a nice word. It's a word that takes the place

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Speaker 1: of a word that, for some reason is inappropriate offensive. Uh,

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Speaker 1: something people don't want to say or think about. Maybe

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Speaker 1: that conjures up too concreteive an image. Yeah, I mean,

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: or 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 creepy.

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Speaker 1: It 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 that 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 distasteful. Okay, So there are

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: word refers to somehow, So you've got to come up

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: a dairy air or copulation urination, you're using a more

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Speaker 1: elegant and uh and in foreign term for what you're

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Speaker 1: talking about. In English. A lot of times the euphemisms

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: origin words sounds more abstract and less like it less

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

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Speaker 1: for instance, s O B or food bar. These are

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Speaker 1: both examples where we we simply abbreviate a A a

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

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

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Speaker 1: abbreviation somewhat offensive, but maybe less so. Yeah. Uh. The

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: me is the situation the situation room, like what what

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Speaker 1: 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 lord Voldemort? Uh? And then there of course mispronunciations

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Speaker 1: 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 go old? Aren't gold? Aren't?

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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 did 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 barbecue. So I would like

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

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Speaker 1: a load of barbecue sauce. Barbecue, I've never heard that.

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

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Speaker 1: barbecue sauce, especially if it's regional North Carolina, South Carolina,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Or beasting. Beasting would be a good one.

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

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Speaker 1: I was trying to think, what what, what could you

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Speaker 1: that's even that even has some of the same consonants

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Speaker 1: in it? Yeah? Um, how about malarkey or maybe malarkey?

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Speaker 1: Is malarkey actually more offensive in in its origin? And

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Speaker 1: we're just it's one of these things where we don't

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Speaker 1: know what it means anymore. I have no idea where

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Speaker 1: it comes from. It would be horrible to go look

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Speaker 1: that up later and find out it's a deeply offensive term. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I feel like that happens a time

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Speaker 1: or two as well. We we have something we think

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Speaker 1: is is a euphemism, but in reality we're just using

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Speaker 1: a far more offensive term than not that fewer people

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Speaker 1: are familiar with. Okay, But so when you use euphemisms,

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Speaker 1: how however you form the new phrase or the new word,

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Speaker 1: you're essentially doing maybe three different kinds of things, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: when you bust out euphemism, you may be employing what

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Speaker 1: is called circumlocution to to speak around that which cannot

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Speaker 1: be said. Yeah, circumlocution, And that's something we often use

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Speaker 1: in a non euphemistic way to like we use it

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Speaker 1: when we're speaking a language we're not very familiar with.

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Speaker 1: If you've ever tried to speak another language, you often

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Speaker 1: don't have the word for a thing, so instead you circumlocute,

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Speaker 1: You say a bunch of things that are sort of

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Speaker 1: explaining the concept of the word to try to get

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Speaker 1: to it. But this would be a case where you

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

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Speaker 1: but because you don't want to use the word. Yeah.

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

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Speaker 1: just we're altering the spelling or pronunciation of of that

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Speaker 1: which cannot be said. So go fudge yourself, um you

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Speaker 1: mother effort. That would be an example of of the

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Speaker 1: use of taboo defamation or gold arn't, Yeah, gold arn't.

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Speaker 1: We're just take like thinking, think of the obscenity as

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Speaker 1: this clay object, and we're just wrenching it into a

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Speaker 1: less profane shape. But we still know what its original

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Speaker 1: shape was it's still it's still echoes that form enough

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Speaker 1: for us to use it, albeit in a blunted form. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I guess the other main thing would be sort

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Speaker 1: of robbing the word of its power to conjure imagery. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: double speak, right, Uh, making neutral the awful. I think

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Speaker 1: one of the best examples of this is to say, uh,

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Speaker 1: the enemy combatant was new traalized, which sounds far nicer

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Speaker 1: than we We shot Rolf to death and his his

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Speaker 1: family will be without him. Now. You know, Rolf was

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Speaker 1: hit with an explosive that resulted in complete body de defragmentation,

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Speaker 1: which I guess is that'd be sort of that's kind

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Speaker 1: of a euphanism as well, right, but defragmentation, what would

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Speaker 1: it be? Rolf was hit by an explosion that severed

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Speaker 1: many arteries. Yes, but you know it's not that funny.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm laugh No, no, but it's

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Speaker 1: kind of getting it as we try to to dance

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Speaker 1: around Rolf's death, and he even discussed more accurately what

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Speaker 1: happened to Rolf. Are some things in life almost like

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

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Speaker 1: least brief language can accurately describe something that is that horrible.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it's interesting to look at

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Speaker 1: the general categories of things that we have euphemisms for.

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Speaker 1: It's not just arbitrary. It's like, it's not like we

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Speaker 1: just have euphemisms for any thing. We have euphemisms usually

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Speaker 1: for terms having to do with the inevitable processes of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: discussed as 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 the

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Speaker 1: workplace version of death. Right. Yeah, we have. For instance,

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Speaker 1: you may have heard about layoffs, downsizing, right, sizing, that's

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: reduction 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 wordout

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

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Speaker 1: like you're free. Oh yeah, we 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 thinking us, I think, maybe more than anywhere else

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: away with it and keep making money, they will do

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and 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. 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 rev 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 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 studies in terms

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

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

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Speaker 1: intelligence UM beings, then various cyberpunk stories. So a corporation

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

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Speaker 1: by whatever chains of law and UH and policy and

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Speaker 1: 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 gloves,

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

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Speaker 1: handle it and benefit from its presence. But there's no

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Speaker 1: denying that it's it's horrible demonic nature. A nice analogy,

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Speaker 1: it's it comes from I guess I read one too

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Speaker 1: many Warhammer book and in my time, Oh, they have

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Speaker 1: demon gloves for the corporations. Um, well know they have

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

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Speaker 1: 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 British

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

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

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Speaker 1: is worth looking into the use of euphemisms maybe in

397
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Speaker 1: other languages too. Yeah, two great examples I think come

398
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Speaker 1: from British English and Mandarin Chinese. So the the Economists

399
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Speaker 1: ran a great and naturally unattributed article back in um

400
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Speaker 1: titled making Murder Respectable, and it runs through a number

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Speaker 1: of examples of euphemisms that are currently uh or or

402
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Speaker 1: sort of previously in use. I think some of the

403
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 1: British ones have fallen out of favor. Did you notice

404
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:59,720
Speaker 1: that nice euphemism they're unattributed, where the real term would

405
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Speaker 1: be the author's name is not listed. Yeah, you can

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Speaker 1: either you would either say the the author is anonymous

407
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 1: or or not credited for their work. But I mean

408
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:13,400
Speaker 1: that's the economist business, a whole separate, separate, separate discussion.

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Speaker 1: Uh so, Yeah. We have a number of course American euphemisms,

410
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Speaker 1: which the the author in this this article points out

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Speaker 1: that these of course just replaced non offensive words terms

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Speaker 1: with new non offensive words in terms. We'll get into

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Speaker 1: the details on this in a bit, but it entails

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Speaker 1: something that's that's been referred to as the euphemism treadmill

415
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Speaker 1: right by the linguist and general scholar Stephen Pinker. Yeah. Yeah, contemporary,

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Speaker 1: very very much contemporary, still commenting on the world we

417
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Speaker 1: find ourselves in today. British euphemisms, on the other hand,

418
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Speaker 1: they create quote a pleasant sense of of complicity between

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Speaker 1: the euphemist and the individual that's listening to the euphemist.

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Speaker 1: The first few examples that the author rolls outcome from

421
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Speaker 1: British o bits, so a drunkard will be described as

422
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: as convivial or cheery. That's great. Um, aniphomaniac is uh,

423
00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:18,199
Speaker 1: and it has notable vivacity and in in prior times

424
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 1: you would of course encountered a homosexual only as a

425
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 1: quote confirmed bachelor. With all of these, it's almost as

426
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 1: if the person using the euphemism and the person hearing

427
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: it are sort of in on a joke together. Yeah, yeah,

428
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:35,400
Speaker 1: there's a And that's something that the author gets into

429
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:37,760
Speaker 1: here too, is you you have to be on it

430
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: on the joke to really understand at least proper British,

431
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: proper British conversation. You have to know the cues, otherwise

432
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 1: you're gonna have no idea what you're talking about. One

433
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: more from the o bit world, though, is that there's

434
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:58,200
Speaker 1: the mysterious burdened by occasional irregularities in his private life

435
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 1: bit like, which is delightfully they like, what what I

436
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 1: assume that means? Scandal scandal ridden life. But that's that's

437
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 1: a lot sharper. So yeah. The author points out that

438
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 1: there are a number of passive cues in sort of

439
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 1: traditional high British conversation, such as incidentally incidentally, Joe. Uh.

440
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:22,679
Speaker 1: This would mean I am now telling you the purpose

441
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:26,199
Speaker 1: of this discussion, even though I'm saying incidentally, as if

442
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 1: this is just an incidental point I want to make,

443
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: I'm actually saying, all right, cut all the crap, this

444
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:36,479
Speaker 1: is the real reason we're meeting here today. Another one

445
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 1: that the the author mentions with the greatest respect. With

446
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 1: the greatest respect, Joe, Uh, that means you are mistaken

447
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: and silly, which which which seems to be the complete

448
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: opposite of what you're literally saying. I can think of

449
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: a Southern American equivalent that bless his heart. Bless his heart. Yeah,

450
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:57,480
Speaker 1: he bless his heart. That means sort of the opposite

451
00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:01,360
Speaker 1: of what it said. Yeah. I think that's a great example. Now.

452
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: The the author of this Economist piece also pointed out

453
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:06,920
Speaker 1: that there are a number of Chinese euphemisms U and these,

454
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: like American euphemisms, often stem from squeamishness. It's not proper

455
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 1: to be too direct, especially if you might offend somebody.

456
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: So it's this idea of of a polite opacity. So

457
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: instead of turning down an invitation, uh, And this might

458
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 1: be like a this can be a really formal invitation,

459
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: like you know, a political of a political nature. One

460
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: might be told that that something is a boufong bion,

461
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: which means not convenient, when that, of course really means

462
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 1: we're not doing that, that's not happening. So it's not

463
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: like this is a bad time for me. Can we

464
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:45,879
Speaker 1: reschedule right? It's it's very reminiscent of I imagine everyone

465
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 1: out there has some friend or acquaintance that's very flaky,

466
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: very wishy washy about their appointments, who say, hey, do

467
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: you want to hang out this week? Let me check

468
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: my calendar. Uh, let me see, I'll get back to you,

469
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 1: you know, instead of like sometimes that means sometimes, yeah,

470
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. And if you didn't if you

471
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:06,239
Speaker 1: didn't know better, you might and you know, you might

472
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: have a policy of an official inquiry with with the

473
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: Chinese government official and you and you might say, oh,

474
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 1: well it's not convenient, I'll try again tomorrow. But no,

475
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: you're not getting the message. It's not convenient, it's not

476
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: going to happen. Perhaps ever, Another example is uh is

477
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: one might ask for an explanation of something and you

478
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:30,639
Speaker 1: might get buching chu, which means uh, I am not clear,

479
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: which just means you're not going to be told like

480
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 1: it basically means I can't tell you that or I

481
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 1: won't tell you that. But uh, it's it's it's casting

482
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: that in the guise of why I'm not really clear

483
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: on the information, but it also kind of sounds like

484
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 1: I am not clear and that I am not I

485
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: am open, I am open. Yeah, So I find it

486
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: interests and there examples like this in every language, and

487
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:57,480
Speaker 1: perhaps our listeners out there, if you have particular examples

488
00:27:57,520 --> 00:27:59,680
Speaker 1: you're aware of in a tongue that you speak or

489
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: have some history with, we'd love to hear those examples.

490
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:05,439
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I always love hearing the different idioms from

491
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 1: around the world that we get from listeners. One of

492
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,200
Speaker 1: my favorites was we heard from a listener and oh,

493
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 1: now I apologize, I can't remember which language it was.

494
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 1: I think it was Swedish or Norwegian or maybe uh,

495
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 1: Scandinavian language, and the expression was it was an expression

496
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: that means something is a miss and the term is

497
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 1: there are owls in the moss. I love it. That's great,

498
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,440
Speaker 1: there are owls in the moss. That's that's pretty good.

499
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 1: If you're the one who sent that to us, which

500
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: I still think about that a lot, Thank you so much. Okay, Well,

501
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: for one other arena of of the interaction between culture

502
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:49,959
Speaker 1: and euphemism, I was thinking about what about religious euphemisms,

503
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: so I sometimes see, here's just one example. I want

504
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: to talk about a few different examples. One of them

505
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: is the way some Christians use euphemism to talk about

506
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: certain doctrines that they haven't explicitly rejected but obviously aren't

507
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 1: comfortable talking about directly. And one example that I have

508
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:15,719
Speaker 1: encountered before is the Christian doctrine of Hell. Yes, now,

509
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: there are many doctrines of Hell, and I don't want

510
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: to paint all believers with the same view, but one

511
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: common interpretation throughout the history of the Church is the

512
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: sort of Dante's Inferno interpretation saying that Dante is more

513
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: or less correct after death, people who are non Christians

514
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: or people who are unrepentant sinners go to a place

515
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: of eternal torture and agony in fire. And some modern

516
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: Christians explicitly deny that premise. They just don't believe that

517
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 1: in that or they don't interpret the references to Hell

518
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 1: that way. Right, Yeah, we actually have an older stuff

519
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: to bear your Mind episode on this that that goes

520
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: through some of the theologies, and I think we have

521
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: a we have a list or gallery that I can

522
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: link to on the landing page for this episode of

523
00:29:57,800 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: stuff to Bring your Mind dot com. But yeah, you

524
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 1: have everything from this literal interpretation to annihilation theology, which says,

525
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 1: when you die going to hell, is that simply essentially

526
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: you are consumed. Your soul is just completely obliterated. Yeah,

527
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: you just ceased to be. Yeah. And then, of course,

528
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: as you allude to, some some do accept and embrace

529
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: it and say explicitly what they mean. You know, hell

530
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 1: is a place of torment, depart from me and everlasting fire.

531
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 1: But there are some people who at least rhetorically seems

532
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: stuck in the middle. I hear this fairly often. They

533
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: don't reject the doctrine, but they don't want to talk

534
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: about it bluntly. So you get phrases that are things

535
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: like the the unrighteous or the unbeliever will suffer divine

536
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: judgment or something like that. Seem it's euphemistic in nature.

537
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: You know, you haven't rejected the belief, but you just

538
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about the particulars of it. That's interesting.

539
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: So they're basically they might, for instance, they might believe

540
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: in this uh, this sort of torture or u revenge

541
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: fantasy of Hell, but they're using the language of annihilation

542
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 1: theology instead as a euphemism for what they actually believe,

543
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: or just not being specific about what the judgment entails. Yeah,

544
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there are there are other terms too.

545
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: That was the first one that came to my mind.

546
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: But it's such a weird area to consider, right, because

547
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: so many of these when you're using a euphemism for

548
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,240
Speaker 1: you know, your your but you're talking about a thing

549
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 1: that has a definite reality. There's there's nothing subjective. It's

550
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: not a doctrine or belief, right, there is an objective,

551
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:40,719
Speaker 1: but there's an objective their objective buttocks. There is an anus.

552
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: There's no denying there no there no no no denying

553
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: these things. But when you get into Hell, they are

554
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: all these discussions. There's there's been, there's a there's a

555
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: there's a broad spectrum of theologies regarding its existence or

556
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: non existence. I mean, I'm I'm personally of the mind

557
00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: that whatever your belief about Hell is, you should you

558
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: should you should speak clearly about it another type of

559
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 1: religious euphemism, I would say, is motivated by a very

560
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:12,320
Speaker 1: different type of thing. Instead of being uncomfortable with certain

561
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: concepts or not wanting to talk about certain things, it

562
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 1: extends from a a perception of holiness or reverence. And

563
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: this is the evolution of the name of God in

564
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: Judaism throughout history. So it's not that the name of

565
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: God has changed so much, or at least not much

566
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 1: in recent history in Judaism, but that at certain points

567
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: throughout history, usage of the name has become taboo because

568
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: of beliefs about not taking the name of the Lord

569
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: in vain. And thus it is required to have a

570
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 1: new word if you want to talk about religious ideas

571
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: such as your belief in God without referencing this word,

572
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 1: that you might be using the wrong way. And so

573
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 1: some of my info here is coming from uh book

574
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: on Hebrew and Western The Hebrew and Western Christian Name

575
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: of God by Robert J. Wilkinson. But in the Hebrew Bible,

576
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: the Jewish God has several names. You've got names like

577
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: ale and ale yawn uh Eloheim, but the most common

578
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: is Yahweh, the four letter word that's often called the

579
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 1: tetragrammaton meaning four letters um. And at a certain point

580
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: in the history of Judaism, and generally in that the

581
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: Hellenistic period, you know, the Greek Conquest, a taboo on

582
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: pronouncing the name emerged. And so, to quote one story

583
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: about this origin from the Babylonian talbot, to quote the Greeks,

584
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: and that's referring to the Seleucid rulers of the region

585
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: at that time decreed that the name of God may

586
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: not be spoken aloud. But when the hasman Ians, and

587
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 1: it was a group of Jewish rebels, grew in strength

588
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: and defeated them, they decreed that the name of God

589
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: be used even in contracts. And an example of this

590
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: might be something like, by the name of Yahweh, I

591
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: will paint your chicken coop if you give me a

592
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:06,760
Speaker 1: tray of corn money, um and so. But then continuing

593
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 1: from the Talmud, when the rabbis heard about this, they said,

594
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,360
Speaker 1: tomorrow this person will pay his debt and the contract

595
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,720
Speaker 1: will be thrown on a garbage heap. So they forbade

596
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: its use in contracts. So it wasn't the use of

597
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:23,320
Speaker 1: the name that was necessarily inherently wrong. It was just

598
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,240
Speaker 1: that using it in this way for sort of everyday

599
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 1: purposes made it vulnerable to accidental defilement. Okay, so you

600
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: have in a sence, you have a very secular use

601
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 1: of divine terminology and uh, and it's not proper to

602
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: throw that around, right, to just make up a contract

603
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:44,160
Speaker 1: with the name of God, and that you'd end up

604
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: throwing in the trash. It's like if you were what's

605
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:49,840
Speaker 1: the the the Clive Barker film where you say that

606
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: the name three times and he shows up candy Man,

607
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: candy man. So it's like candy man. Can't You don't

608
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: want to say candy man all the time because he

609
00:34:57,640 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: will show up and start killing people, and you've got

610
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:01,879
Speaker 1: a limited number of times you can invoke that. Yeah,

611
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:03,879
Speaker 1: So we need to have another name for candy Man.

612
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 1: You call him like, you know, sweet guy, sweet guy. Yeah.

613
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: But then after a while, like there's still a candy

614
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: Man is just so magical and so potent that he's

615
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: going to creep into that term as well and start

616
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:17,919
Speaker 1: popping up when you say that words. So you gotta

617
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: come up with another one. Yeah. But so anyway, going on,

618
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: in the same spirit of avoiding accidental defilements, some Jews

619
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: throughout history have avoided saying the tetragrammaton name out loud,

620
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:32,320
Speaker 1: even in context where I would think one would assume

621
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 1: it was probably not being defiled, such as in reading

622
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 1: of the Torah. So you might have readings aloud from

623
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: the Torah where the reader would come to the four

624
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 1: letter name of God, and then instead of saying it,

625
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: the reader would substitute something like the word ad and i,

626
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: which means lord or master. But then in time, the

627
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 1: originally euphemistic ad and i, which was just substituted to

628
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 1: avoid saying the original name, also came to be charged

629
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 1: with the aria general holiness of the name of God.

630
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 1: And so then later you'd have some Jews referring to

631
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: God as Hashem, meaning the name. So you you have

632
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: this evolutionary process by which um a word is used

633
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:16,320
Speaker 1: to avoid disrespect, but then that word sort of becomes

634
00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: worthy of respect in in its own right. But then anyway,

635
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 1: so according to the Talmud, sometimes shortly after the conquest

636
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: of Alexander the Great, the high priest stopped saying the

637
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: name of God when when giving blessings. And in the Mishnah,

638
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:35,359
Speaker 1: which is a work of Jewish rabbinic literature, putting down

639
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: lots of Jewish oral traditions into writing. The name of

640
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: God is often avoided and substituted with other words associated

641
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:47,359
Speaker 1: with God, like Heaven or the place, or the Holy One,

642
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 1: blessed be he uh and so again. I think these

643
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: ephemisms are interesting because they're not used to avoid mentioning

644
00:36:55,680 --> 00:37:00,360
Speaker 1: something unpleasant or offensive, but to avoid accidental def ailement

645
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: of a word that, in this religious concept context, is

646
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 1: believed to be holy, believed to be treated with reverence

647
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: and respect. That's interesting because I think it's easy to

648
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: to believe that you just have all these different names

649
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: for for God solely because hey, God's really cool, really

650
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:21,720
Speaker 1: important and has all these uh these these different points

651
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: in time where people are considering it and therefore they

652
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 1: need a different name for it, uh, you know. And

653
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 1: then we see that that sort of loose interpretation reflected

654
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 1: in our discussion of unreal deities, where so like Goes

655
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 1: goes a the Ghazarian has several different names and Ghostbusters, um,

656
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: probably just because goes Are is cool and needs a

657
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: number of names. Right, Yeah, it's true, like you've lost

658
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: the original, uh, the original rationale for all this diversification,

659
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: but you've still got the process. It's a cargo cult

660
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 1: of naming deity. But I was just wondering, are there

661
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 1: similar euphemisms and other religions too, for for either one

662
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: for talking about concepts that might be uncomfortable to some believers,

663
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: yet they haven't been fully rejected or talking about things

664
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 1: that cannot be named out of respect. Yeah. We we

665
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:14,800
Speaker 1: briefly talked about this before we came in here, and

666
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: we had a hard time nailing down another example. We

667
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: we talked about the devil a little bit, but I

668
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: think that's not exactly the same. It's not because there's

669
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: this there's this timeline in our development of of of

670
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: the devil as a concept that's really kind of similar

671
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: to our concept of hell, where the devil as this

672
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: real popular conception of the Western devil or even like

673
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 1: the classical devil or the or the Miltonian devil or

674
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: Dante's devil, like, these are all vastly different things, and

675
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: they occur at different points in our evolving conception of

676
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: the devil, and even just on a been a biblical basis. Uh,

677
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: you go back to say the Book of Job, like,

678
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:56,000
Speaker 1: that's not the devil. That's that's some guy who works

679
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 1: for God. It's called Satan that I believe stems from

680
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:04,720
Speaker 1: the Hebraic Hasitan, which was just a court role. Yeah exactly.

681
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:08,320
Speaker 1: But then I think we've also not, um, we've not

682
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: had the same kind of evolution because the devil is

683
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 1: not really considered holy. So um. In fact, there's often

684
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 1: the the the opposite effort to to really cast the

685
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: devil down instead and refer to refer to it as

686
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: a worm or or what have you. Sometimes we should

687
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,760
Speaker 1: do a history of the Devil show. Oh yeah, we should.

688
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: But anyway, so I want to move on yet again,

689
00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: from one totally on uncontroversial subject religion, to another one politics. Um. So,

690
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 1: there is definitely a strong cultural import of euphemism in politics.

691
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:45,800
Speaker 1: And this is this probably won't come as a surprise

692
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:47,839
Speaker 1: to you, but exactly how it works out you might

693
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: be a little fuzzy on. And this is something that

694
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,359
Speaker 1: is uh, you can definitely find explored in a really

695
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: lucid and fascinating way in the nineteen essay by George Orwell,

696
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 1: the English journalist and critic called Politics and the English Language.

697
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:07,800
Speaker 1: And in this essay, which by the way, is a

698
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: lot of people might have read it in college as

699
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: sort of just like a writing style essay. But I

700
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: think it's a great read. It's just fun to read.

701
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 1: He's got a great writing style. Uh. And anyway, in

702
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 1: this essay, Orwell lays out a series of criticisms as

703
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: what he saw as the deterioration of the quality of

704
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: published writing in English in his time. So he's coming

705
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 1: right out of World War Two. You know, You've you've

706
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,840
Speaker 1: got a you've got a victorious Soviet Union to deal with.

707
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 1: You've just you've just had the fall of the Nazi regime.

708
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: The world has been in chaos for a while. But anyway,

709
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 1: he so he's talking about in this in this climate,

710
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,800
Speaker 1: the English language has really been put through the ringer.

711
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 1: Oh and I just used a cliche that he would

712
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 1: aborre as he attacks the use of cliches like that

713
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: in his essay. But in one famous passage, Orwell translates

714
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:03,239
Speaker 1: a well verse from the King James Bible translation of

715
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 1: the Book of Ecclesiastes into the style he's referring to

716
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,879
Speaker 1: in modern English. And so I just got to read

717
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 1: this because it's too good. The King James Bible says,

718
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 1: I returned and saw under the sun that the race

719
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 1: is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,

720
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 1: neither yet bred to the wise, nor yet riches to

721
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:30,240
Speaker 1: men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill.

722
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 1: But time and chance happeneth to them all. Okay, Orwell's

723
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: rewriting of that in modern English is objective. Considerations of

724
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 1: contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in

725
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 1: competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity,

726
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably

727
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 1: be taken into account. Now, it does communicate the same

728
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:03,319
Speaker 1: sense basically. Yeah, I almost feel like like his translation

729
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:06,919
Speaker 1: of it is better. Maybe I think, I think maybe

730
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: it just comes from reading too many, you know, god

731
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:13,840
Speaker 1: awful peer of viewed papers for work. But but I

732
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: feel like that when kind of drove home a little,

733
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 1: a little, a little easier for me. Oh man, I

734
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: can't agree with you here, Robert, that is awful. Come on, yeah, hey,

735
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,800
Speaker 1: you know, okay, Well anyway, so, so Orwell goes on

736
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: to say in in his main characterization that quote. Modern

737
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: writing at its worst does not consistent picking out words

738
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in

739
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in coming

740
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:43,439
Speaker 1: together long strips of words which have already been set

741
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: in order by someone else and making the results presentable

742
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 1: by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing

743
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: is that it is easy, and I think there's some

744
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,319
Speaker 1: truth to that, like that when you use these sort

745
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 1: of cliches and bloated phrases, is it writing comes very naturally.

746
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:04,760
Speaker 1: You don't have to think as much about the images

747
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 1: or the words you're choosing as you do when you

748
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 1: try to write things in a simpler, uh more concrete way. Well,

749
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 1: I mean there's this second example. I was I instantly

750
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:17,800
Speaker 1: thought of peer re viewed papers because there is this

751
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: this often very specific, clinical, technical discussion of what's going on. Often,

752
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 1: you know, not not all the time, but sometimes this

753
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: can feel a bit soulless. But you can you can

754
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 1: read it, and you you basically you basically know what

755
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 1: they're talking about in in great detail, and there's less

756
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 1: interpretation involved, and so yeah, it's it's a less creative venture, uh,

757
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 1: either to to write or to read. But is it

758
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 1: more exact? I don't know if it is. And I

759
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 1: think Well or Well might disagree with you, but I

760
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 1: would like to hear what you think. When season so,

761
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: I want to get to his main argument. Then maybe

762
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,400
Speaker 1: you can come back and flog or Well for me.

763
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: So for Well, the decline in the quality of writing

764
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:06,240
Speaker 1: was not just an esthetic concern. It's not just bad

765
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:10,720
Speaker 1: writing that is less enjoyable to read. It is actually

766
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: a threat against truth, freedom and social democracy. English quote

767
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 1: becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but

768
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:24,239
Speaker 1: the slovenly of our language makes it easier for us

769
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 1: to have foolish thoughts. And so if you've read Orwell's

770
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: novel novel nineteen eighty four, Robert, I assume you've read

771
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:34,439
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, Yeah, you'll recall that at the time

772
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 1: of the story takes place, the totalitarian government in the novel,

773
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: working under Big Brother, is engaged in the creation of

774
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 1: a new form of English known as new speak and

775
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: uh in in Politics and Language, Orwell says quote, if

776
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:52,799
Speaker 1: thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought, and new

777
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: Speak in in nineteen eighty four very much embodies this.

778
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: It reflects I think what orwell saw is the political

779
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: power of language. Essentially, control the use of language, and

780
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: you control how people think, control how people think, and

781
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 1: you command them to your purpose. Uh. And so I

782
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: want to read one long ish quote from Politics and

783
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:15,839
Speaker 1: the English Language where he really gets to how euphemisms

784
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 1: are used in political writing and political journalism. So here's

785
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: the quote, with a few abridgements for length. In our time,

786
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 1: political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

787
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:34,240
Speaker 1: Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question begging,

788
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:39,359
Speaker 1: and sheer, cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air,

789
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 1: The inhabitants are driven out into the countryside, the cattle

790
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 1: machine gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets.

791
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:51,800
Speaker 1: This is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of

792
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 1: their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no

793
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 1: more than they can carry. This is called transfer of

794
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 1: the population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for

795
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:06,319
Speaker 1: years without trial, shot in the back of the neck,

796
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 1: or sent to die of scurvy and arctic lumber camps.

797
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: This is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is

798
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:18,759
Speaker 1: needed if one wants to name things without calling up

799
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 1: mental pictures of them. Consider, for instance, some comfortable English

800
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 1: professor defending Russian totalitarianism, and he's talking about Stalinism. There

801
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 1: he cannot say outright, I believe in killing off your

802
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 1: opponents when you can get good results by doing so. Probably,

803
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 1: therefore he will say something like this, while freely conceding

804
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 1: that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features with which the

805
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 1: humanitarian may be inclined to deplore. We must, i think,

806
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 1: agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political

807
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that

808
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,439
Speaker 1: the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon

809
00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of

810
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 1: concrete achievement. The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism.

811
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,160
Speaker 1: A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like

812
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 1: soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details.

813
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 1: So what do you think about that, Robert, No, I mean,

814
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:19,319
Speaker 1: I I agree with that. It's it guess it comes

815
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 1: down to, like this kind of this kind of writing

816
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 1: they we're talking about, is it's essentially writing like a

817
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: machine and and inviting the reader to think about the

818
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: the topic like a machine with sort of this with

819
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 1: without any of these human touches. That that that add

820
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 1: humanity to the subject matter, which in a I think

821
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:46,840
Speaker 1: in a scientific environment like or certainly and say a

822
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:51,720
Speaker 1: study about ecoli in a in a lab experiment, that's

823
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 1: perfectly that's perfectly fair, Like that's the way to do it.

824
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 1: But of course, when you when you're getting into um,

825
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 1: you know, affairs of politics and war, certainly, um, even

826
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:05,720
Speaker 1: domestic politics. You know, the people's lives hang in the balance,

827
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 1: and if you distance yourself with language enough, then you

828
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 1: don't have to deal with the the the actual flesh

829
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 1: and blood ramifications of what you're talking about. But then

830
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 1: the other side of that is, it's somebody's job, right

831
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 1: to make a better killing machine. It's somebody's job to uh,

832
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: to to cut how the funding of public housing, you know,

833
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,920
Speaker 1: so it of course they're going to try and do

834
00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:32,839
Speaker 1: it in a way that makes them feel less icky, right,

835
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:36,480
Speaker 1: I mean, so Orwell says political language uh And he

836
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 1: says that this comes from both sides, from conservatives to anarchists,

837
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: is designed to make lies sound truthful, and murder respectable

838
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:48,400
Speaker 1: and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

839
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 1: And I think there is a lot of truth to that. Yeah,

840
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 1: that you I mean, I understand the need for it.

841
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it has done purely out of

842
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: calculating malice. There there are people who work in in

843
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:06,400
Speaker 1: government who do things that you would probably think of

844
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: as bad, but who don't think of themselves as bad people,

845
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: and so they have they have they've got to come

846
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 1: up with some way of getting around this. And it's

847
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: this circumlocution, or it's this neutralizing language, like we talked

848
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:22,040
Speaker 1: about earlier, coming up with these abstract terminologies, naming things

849
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 1: in terms of processes rather than of consequences. You know, Uh,

850
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:29,959
Speaker 1: it's not that we killed a guy, but the enemy

851
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,239
Speaker 1: was neutralized and for or well, you know, I think

852
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:36,440
Speaker 1: these types of phrases and euphemisms are they're not limited

853
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 1: to the rulers themselves, right that They're not limited just

854
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 1: two people who want to justify themselves in tyranny and

855
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 1: stupefy the masses with this lullaby of empty, denatured language.

856
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: They're also used by people who should know better, people

857
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:53,760
Speaker 1: who who might even be critical of those in power.

858
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 1: Euphemisms and mushy phrases are used, he emphasizes, because they're easy.

859
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: They make writing easier, and they make thinking about concepts easier.

860
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,920
Speaker 1: Euphemisms are like a lubricant that just allows you to

861
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:12,160
Speaker 1: easily insert your mind into a conversation without struggling with

862
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 1: the most difficult implications of it. And for or well,

863
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 1: this is not just applicable to these political euphemisms, you know,

864
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 1: for killing and and and these horrible acts, but it

865
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 1: goes into everyday conversation. So he writes quote phrases like

866
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 1: a not unjustifiable assumption leaves much to be desired, would

867
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do

868
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:40,319
Speaker 1: well to bear in mind. Are a continuous and he says,

869
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 1: those are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always

870
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:47,560
Speaker 1: at one's elbow. And I really do like that idea

871
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: of the euphemism as a painkiller. Yeah, it makes me think, well, yeah,

872
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:58,240
Speaker 1: I'm instantly thinking of various recent examples of of strong

873
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 1: statements about about war and the use of war in

874
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 1: a political climate. And here I'm using euphemisms already to

875
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:09,759
Speaker 1: to talk about it. But it's it's like, it's like,

876
00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:12,320
Speaker 1: if you have this sentence where you're gonna say, we

877
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:16,319
Speaker 1: are going to eliminate enemy combatants, all right, and if

878
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:19,359
Speaker 1: you if you start removing some of the euphemisms there,

879
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:23,760
Speaker 1: you still have to try and make that unacceptable sentence

880
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 1: to whoever whoever is saying or um or listening to it.

881
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:31,400
Speaker 1: So if if you replace eliminate with kill, if you

882
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: replace eliminate with with you know, um, carpet bomb or

883
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 1: something like that, and if you were then you're still

884
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 1: going to have to try and make it a sentence

885
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: that you can live with. And sometimes that comes. So

886
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 1: what else can you change in that sentence? You can

887
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: change enemy combatants to barbarians, you can, or or any

888
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 1: other various form that also dehumanizes what's going on. But

889
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:58,960
Speaker 1: by point should by changing the direction of the dehumanization, right, Well,

890
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,600
Speaker 1: that would be what was what is known as a dysphemism.

891
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:05,080
Speaker 1: There's that how you pronounce it. A euphemism would be

892
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 1: you know, it's euphemism comes from you meaning good and

893
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: female female meaning speech. So a dysphemism is the opposite. Essentially,

894
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:18,840
Speaker 1: you're you're taking a concept that's inherently neutral and applying

895
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:23,320
Speaker 1: a term to it that is a bad filtering terms.

896
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,840
Speaker 1: It essentially filters out the good imagery or things you

897
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 1: might associate with a thing and and gives it bad connotations. Well,

898
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: what's a good example here of a dyspimism for our listeners?

899
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 1: How about? How about somebody is not happy with a

900
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: deal that they made, you know, they bought a car

901
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 1: or something, and they say I got ripped off. Oh

902
00:52:44,280 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 1: it goes, and to take it a step further, they

903
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 1: would say, oh I got screwed. Yeah, I really got

904
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:51,760
Speaker 1: screwed in that deal. Did you really get quote unquote

905
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 1: screwed in any of the various interpretations there? No, you

906
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:58,239
Speaker 1: just bought something and you you later regretted how much

907
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:00,440
Speaker 1: you spent on it or something. But they have to

908
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:04,520
Speaker 1: use the screws on my hands and my fingers, and

909
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 1: now I have lost the ability to write, oh is

910
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 1: that for thumbscrews? And I'm thinking of a very medieval interpretation. Okay,

911
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:13,879
Speaker 1: But either way, ripped off you didn't ripped off means

912
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:18,040
Speaker 1: you got robbed. You didn't get robbed. You you made

913
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 1: a deal that you're that you later regretted. But that's

914
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 1: a dysphemism. It's it's substituting a more negative connotation word

915
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 1: for this originally, you know, more direct term, And I

916
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:32,960
Speaker 1: guess that would be kind of on the outskirts of hyperbole,

917
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:34,880
Speaker 1: Like you're not going as far to say this was

918
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,800
Speaker 1: highway robbery, but you're getting close. Yeah, But so that

919
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 1: there are just like there are lots of euphemisms in

920
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 1: political language, there's some dysphemisms in it too. Like you

921
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 1: might find an establishment language the government itself and and

922
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:52,520
Speaker 1: the bureaucracies that exist, and to speak in euphemisms to

923
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: kind of make everything a little a little uh smoothed

924
00:53:56,640 --> 00:54:00,440
Speaker 1: over and a little soothing. But meanwhile you might have

925
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 1: sort of agitators and radical factions tending to speak in dysphemisms,

926
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: talking about fairly normal things that you could express in

927
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:14,480
Speaker 1: a fairly straightforward way in these just grandly negative terms. Yeah.

928
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:17,600
Speaker 1: I think, especially in his Facebook age, everybody can think

929
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:20,359
Speaker 1: of of strong examples of this. You know, what, how

930
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:24,160
Speaker 1: is saving New York Times uh explaining the situation? And

931
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:27,320
Speaker 1: how is your your your uncle Jim explaining the situation?

932
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:30,400
Speaker 1: Where how is the article that he's linking explaining it?

933
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:32,760
Speaker 1: Very likely I'd say The New York Times is probably

934
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 1: being a little euphemistic. I mean, even even their good writers,

935
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 1: they tend to be a little euphemistic, just not putting

936
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:41,759
Speaker 1: things in very blunt, harsh terms. They might say, go

937
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 1: to the restroom. It's the going to the restroom of politics.

938
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 1: But there's plenty of dysphimism out there on the web.

939
00:54:48,239 --> 00:54:49,920
Speaker 1: But anyway, I want to come back to Orwell. So

940
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:54,000
Speaker 1: the question is, sort of, uh, so Orwell had these

941
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:59,880
Speaker 1: concerns about euphemisms, about their potential for enabling totalitarian is

942
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:03,680
Speaker 1: them and they're they're the threat that they represented to

943
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:08,760
Speaker 1: a free social democracy. So my question is, was Orwell's

944
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:14,320
Speaker 1: belief in the totalitary and potential of vocabulary correct? In

945
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:16,440
Speaker 1: some ways I'm sort of inclined to agree with him

946
00:55:16,440 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 1: because the examples he gives very much makes sense to me.

947
00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 1: By by using this sort of d natured, sanitized language

948
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:27,480
Speaker 1: to talk about killing people and you know, doing things

949
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 1: that are very harsh and cruel and have real bloody

950
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:34,240
Speaker 1: realities and you know, down in the dirt of reality,

951
00:55:35,239 --> 00:55:38,360
Speaker 1: I'm sure it makes it easier for people to assent

952
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:40,879
Speaker 1: to these things, to to sort of just go along

953
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 1: with it, we've we've found some nice words for it.

954
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:47,759
Speaker 1: But then again, um, there are other strong arguments that

955
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:51,680
Speaker 1: sort of go against the idea that vocabulary has this

956
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:54,759
Speaker 1: much power over our thinking. And I guess we can

957
00:55:55,200 --> 00:55:57,360
Speaker 1: maybe address these after a break. Do you want to

958
00:55:57,400 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 1: take a break. Let's take a quick break and we

959
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:02,200
Speaker 1: come back. We'll talk about the euphemism treadmill as well

960
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,239
Speaker 1: as the the war Fian view, uh and the work

961
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:13,719
Speaker 1: of Stephen Pinker. So we were talking about whether this

962
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:19,359
Speaker 1: totalitarian potential of vocabulary control is correct. Do words really

963
00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:21,919
Speaker 1: have this much power to control the way we think?

964
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 1: Does language determined thought? So, as linguist Stephen Pinker has

965
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:30,680
Speaker 1: pointed out, the Orwellian view is really kind of based

966
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:33,320
Speaker 1: in what's referred to as the war Fian view. This

967
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:36,440
Speaker 1: is the work of American linguists Benjamin Lee Wharf, no

968
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:39,760
Speaker 1: relation to the kling on that different spell like I believe,

969
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:43,799
Speaker 1: also often known as the Sappier Wharf hypothesis. Yes, and uh,

970
00:56:43,920 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: he to give you a timeline for him, he was

971
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 1: through one. That's when he was alive. And uh yeah,

972
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:54,600
Speaker 1: So his his argument and then therefore or Will's argument

973
00:56:54,719 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 1: is yes, language, Uh we we language is how we

974
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:00,279
Speaker 1: think we think in language. This is the like the

975
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:03,759
Speaker 1: bare bones languages, the operating for the operating system for

976
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:07,040
Speaker 1: the human brain view. But a lot of cognitive neuroscience

977
00:57:07,120 --> 00:57:09,880
Speaker 1: now says, I don't know if that view is correct.

978
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:14,160
Speaker 1: In fact, it's probably not. Right now, I will say this, Uh,

979
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 1: this is an important fact that to keep in mind

980
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: about language is that while spoken language comes to us

981
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 1: naturally or expose who are growing up, we simply absorb

982
00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:27,680
Speaker 1: the words that fill our world multiple languages even, Um,

983
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 1: it's not the same with written language. Written language takes work.

984
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:33,800
Speaker 1: We have to trick our brains early on in order

985
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:37,280
Speaker 1: to avoid backwards letters. The dB confusion because our brains

986
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:41,320
Speaker 1: inherently try to decipher symbols and letters is three dimensional objects.

987
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: I never thought about that. Yeah, it's a I was

988
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:48,800
Speaker 1: reading or listening to something about that recently. Uh. The point, however,

989
00:57:48,920 --> 00:57:51,400
Speaker 1: here is that that written language is kind of a lie.

990
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:55,040
Speaker 1: So grammar, rules, dictionaries, all of these attempt to to

991
00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:59,040
Speaker 1: chain that which is free, to solidify the inherently fluid

992
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:01,880
Speaker 1: nature of language. Uh. Certainly humans have been saying the

993
00:58:01,960 --> 00:58:04,080
Speaker 1: same things for a very long time and will continue

994
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,520
Speaker 1: to say, say the same horrible things, but how we

995
00:58:07,640 --> 00:58:10,320
Speaker 1: say them changes the individual words the cultural weight of

996
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:13,320
Speaker 1: those words. Um and I often think of think of

997
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 1: this in terms of weighted stones placed upon a sheet, Okay,

998
00:58:17,760 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: like a sheet that's held talk by yeah. Um. This

999
00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:24,640
Speaker 1: is an exercise that's frequently used to demonstrate how massive

1000
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: planetary objects bend uh an exert gravitational forces, like the

1001
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: sheet of space time and and a rock is an

1002
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 1: object with mass. But instead of each stone being um,

1003
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:40,520
Speaker 1: you know, planet, each stone is a word. And unlike

1004
00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:44,760
Speaker 1: actual stones and i'm, unlike words as we might experience

1005
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:49,480
Speaker 1: them in a dictionary, the weights change. So this is

1006
00:58:49,520 --> 00:58:52,080
Speaker 1: where we get into this idea that the Stephen Pinker

1007
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:56,320
Speaker 1: gives us, the idea of the euphemism treadmill, the linguistic

1008
00:58:56,400 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 1: process by which euphemisms often become taboo or a So

1009
00:59:00,640 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 1: a euphemism is originally created in order to avoid having

1010
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: to say the taboo or offensive or uncomfortable thing, but

1011
00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:13,960
Speaker 1: then in time, the euphemism itself takes on the properties

1012
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:16,760
Speaker 1: of that original word you were trying to avoid. Yeah.

1013
00:59:16,800 --> 00:59:19,280
Speaker 1: Have you ever played a platform video game where your

1014
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:23,000
Speaker 1: character has to jump onto a pillar and once you

1015
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:26,520
Speaker 1: stand on the pillar, it begins to sink down. You

1016
00:59:26,600 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: have to jump to the next pillar, and that starts

1017
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:30,520
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. And this is how you have

1018
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:33,360
Speaker 1: to cross this entire expanse of muck. You've got to

1019
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 1: keep moving. Yeah, that's basically what's going on here with

1020
00:59:36,040 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 1: the euphemism treadmill. Polite language, you have to keep moving,

1021
00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 1: Pinker says. Quote. The euphemism treadmill shows that concepts, not words,

1022
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:46,160
Speaker 1: are in charge. Give a concept a new name, and

1023
00:59:46,240 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 1: the name becomes colored by the concept. The concept does

1024
00:59:49,880 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 1: not become freshened by the name. So he gives examples

1025
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:58,120
Speaker 1: of like the progression of terminology for people with disabilities. Uh.

1026
00:59:58,240 --> 01:00:01,560
Speaker 1: So he starts with the idea that crippled. Originally that

1027
01:00:01,720 --> 01:00:05,040
Speaker 1: was not an offensive term. That was a polite term

1028
01:00:05,480 --> 01:00:08,160
Speaker 1: right to describe somebody who had a disability, But it

1029
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 1: took on negative connotations. People began to use it as

1030
01:00:11,640 --> 01:00:14,640
Speaker 1: a mean word to say about people. So then that

1031
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:17,600
Speaker 1: was moved on and so so we no longer say that,

1032
01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:22,000
Speaker 1: and now we have handicapped. But then that also eventually

1033
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 1: became perceived as sort of like stale as a euphemism.

1034
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:29,000
Speaker 1: I guess, and this I guess it started to take

1035
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:32,920
Speaker 1: on some of the negative connotations that crippled had acquired,

1036
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:35,800
Speaker 1: and then moved on to disabled, and so you've got

1037
01:00:36,520 --> 01:00:39,560
Speaker 1: differently abled is is more of the current version, Like

1038
01:00:39,600 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 1: we've moved on again to another pillar in the right.

1039
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:44,640
Speaker 1: So you can so on one hand, just if you're

1040
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:48,000
Speaker 1: looking from the outside, you'd be like constantly moving words around.

1041
01:00:48,080 --> 01:00:51,040
Speaker 1: That seems kind of ridiculous, but it's not when you

1042
01:00:51,120 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 1: consider how usage of words happens and how language works. Yeah,

1043
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:58,400
Speaker 1: I mean people, if people are using a word with

1044
01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 1: negative connotations, eventually people who want to use that word

1045
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:05,760
Speaker 1: with positive connotations will want a different word. Yeah. Another

1046
01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:08,760
Speaker 1: great example of this that's so asided is the use

1047
01:01:08,800 --> 01:01:12,320
Speaker 1: of idiot or moron. These used to be neutral terms.

1048
01:01:12,680 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 1: They weren't insults, right, but over time they became they

1049
01:01:16,440 --> 01:01:18,720
Speaker 1: became insults, and now they are very much an insult.

1050
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:21,600
Speaker 1: And because someone an idiot or moron, you're using an insult.

1051
01:01:21,640 --> 01:01:24,160
Speaker 1: You're not using a neutral term. So we went from

1052
01:01:24,240 --> 01:01:28,040
Speaker 1: that to retarded, which at for like, it feels weird

1053
01:01:28,080 --> 01:01:29,960
Speaker 1: to say it because it now it is the R

1054
01:01:30,040 --> 01:01:34,440
Speaker 1: word unless you're you know, using it in very particular circumstances. Um.

1055
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:37,640
Speaker 1: But but this was this was neutral, and then it

1056
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:41,120
Speaker 1: became an obscene term. Uh. And then from here we

1057
01:01:41,160 --> 01:01:44,800
Speaker 1: went to mentally mentally challenged and special. But even these

1058
01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:49,080
Speaker 1: I feel are degraded, uh to a large degree, especially special,

1059
01:01:49,240 --> 01:01:52,080
Speaker 1: like to say someone special. I can I can't think

1060
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:54,360
Speaker 1: of any specific examples, but I believe I've heard that

1061
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 1: used at least flippantly, if not as an outright offense.

1062
01:01:57,520 --> 01:01:59,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it is the thing mean kids say. Now,

1063
01:02:00,520 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 1: like a mean kid wants to they'll they'll call another

1064
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:06,120
Speaker 1: kids special children. If you're out there listening, I don't

1065
01:02:06,120 --> 01:02:08,000
Speaker 1: know why children are listening to, but you should not

1066
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:11,640
Speaker 1: see the children. That's not very nice. But yeah, again,

1067
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: it shows that as soon as so you come up with.

1068
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:16,720
Speaker 1: And I'd be interested to see if somebody could create

1069
01:02:16,880 --> 01:02:21,000
Speaker 1: a a like time lag model of this, like how

1070
01:02:21,120 --> 01:02:26,800
Speaker 1: long after a new non offensive term is introduced does

1071
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:30,640
Speaker 1: it take before that term takes on some unpleasant connotations

1072
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:33,800
Speaker 1: people start using it as a term of insult or abuse,

1073
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: and people who want to speak politely feel like they

1074
01:02:37,400 --> 01:02:40,520
Speaker 1: need a new term, Like how long does it generally take?

1075
01:02:41,040 --> 01:02:43,840
Speaker 1: Another example of this I think would be in business.

1076
01:02:44,280 --> 01:02:48,520
Speaker 1: So we already talked about the robust use of euthanisms

1077
01:02:48,880 --> 01:02:53,080
Speaker 1: in the business environment. But also think about the buzzwords, right,

1078
01:02:53,680 --> 01:02:56,160
Speaker 1: those buzz words. They gotta have buzz or they're not buzzwords,

1079
01:02:56,240 --> 01:03:00,400
Speaker 1: and buzzwords inherently lose their buzz. So you know, everybody

1080
01:03:00,520 --> 01:03:03,120
Speaker 1: might be talking about the I can't. I can't even

1081
01:03:03,160 --> 01:03:04,680
Speaker 1: think of what the most recent one has been in

1082
01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:07,200
Speaker 1: our circles. But to take an older one, like there

1083
01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:10,880
Speaker 1: was a time when when innovation, innovation or storytelling, we

1084
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 1: are all story storytelling is the one. I hate that

1085
01:03:13,680 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 1: these words have been completely destroyed, but I believe they have.

1086
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:21,520
Speaker 1: We need we need new words and storytelling. Come on,

1087
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:25,400
Speaker 1: I love stories. Stories are like my favorite thing on earth.

1088
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:28,520
Speaker 1: But when I hear when I hear business leaders talking

1089
01:03:28,560 --> 01:03:32,000
Speaker 1: about storytelling, I'm like, well, okay, we can't. We can't

1090
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:34,800
Speaker 1: describe it like that anymore. Yeah, yeah, because it it

1091
01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:38,920
Speaker 1: ends up losing that. It loses it's it's punch, it

1092
01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:42,760
Speaker 1: loses its value, and since it loses its holiness, oh yeah, yeah,

1093
01:03:42,800 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 1: it does lose its holiness. And it also comes to

1094
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:49,640
Speaker 1: stop referring to the thing it originally referred to when

1095
01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:53,720
Speaker 1: it basically just means like any talking in any talking

1096
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:58,000
Speaker 1: or writing or or any kind of communication can be storytelling.

1097
01:03:58,680 --> 01:04:03,080
Speaker 1: That's not storytelling, right, what is storytelling? Yeah? Exactly. Now,

1098
01:04:03,280 --> 01:04:06,120
Speaker 1: to come back to the euphemism treadmill real quick, I

1099
01:04:06,400 --> 01:04:08,480
Speaker 1: also want to point out that I have seen it

1100
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:12,600
Speaker 1: argue that this is essentially uh, this essentially lines up

1101
01:04:12,640 --> 01:04:15,760
Speaker 1: with Gresham's law Gresham's law in economics, which states that

1102
01:04:15,880 --> 01:04:18,760
Speaker 1: bad money drives out the good. This is a name

1103
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:22,320
Speaker 1: for Sir Thomas Gresham, the financial agent of Queen Elizabeth

1104
01:04:22,360 --> 01:04:25,640
Speaker 1: the First. And the idea here was that if some

1105
01:04:25,840 --> 01:04:28,400
Speaker 1: coins in circulation are pure pure silver and others are

1106
01:04:28,520 --> 01:04:30,800
Speaker 1: less pure, people are going to spend the bad coins

1107
01:04:30,840 --> 01:04:32,720
Speaker 1: if they're gonna keep the good ones for themselves. So

1108
01:04:32,880 --> 01:04:35,200
Speaker 1: what do you know? Yeah, so that that makes sense

1109
01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:39,200
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, that that correlation with the euphemism treadmill.

1110
01:04:39,280 --> 01:04:42,560
Speaker 1: But also you have a note here, Robert about a

1111
01:04:42,600 --> 01:04:45,520
Speaker 1: different kind of treadmill that I found interesting. Yeah, we've

1112
01:04:45,520 --> 01:04:49,400
Speaker 1: already mentioned disphemisms. There is a dispiphemism treadmill as well.

1113
01:04:50,400 --> 01:04:55,040
Speaker 1: And the example that that comes up is that sucks.

1114
01:04:55,720 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 1: That sucks stems from a a more specific us statement

1115
01:05:00,360 --> 01:05:02,240
Speaker 1: that is also still in use, but a more offensive one.

1116
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:06,280
Speaker 1: You can say something sucks and it's you know, it's

1117
01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 1: in kids TV shows, but you know it's it's on

1118
01:05:09,040 --> 01:05:12,200
Speaker 1: you know, whatever's on Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network during the

1119
01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:15,320
Speaker 1: day when children are watching, but they're they're not going

1120
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:17,920
Speaker 1: to say what something is sucking. Yeah. When I was

1121
01:05:17,960 --> 01:05:20,600
Speaker 1: a kid, I remember saying that sucks, thinking it was

1122
01:05:20,640 --> 01:05:25,520
Speaker 1: a totally non offensive phrase, and having a teacher, Uh,

1123
01:05:25,640 --> 01:05:27,919
Speaker 1: tell me, you know, if I had said that word,

1124
01:05:28,000 --> 01:05:29,840
Speaker 1: it would have been like I said a word that

1125
01:05:30,000 --> 01:05:34,040
Speaker 1: rhymes with it. Yeah, it was Uh, he was saying

1126
01:05:34,120 --> 01:05:37,400
Speaker 1: that that that is a really really offensive term. But

1127
01:05:37,480 --> 01:05:39,240
Speaker 1: it wasn't like that to me, and it was that

1128
01:05:39,600 --> 01:05:44,320
Speaker 1: it had lost its dysphemistic qualities. Yeah. And it's one

1129
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:46,480
Speaker 1: of those two when you start peeling out apart, it's like,

1130
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:48,520
Speaker 1: why is that a stay? Why is that bad? I

1131
01:05:48,600 --> 01:05:51,080
Speaker 1: don't know. It's we get we get all our sexual

1132
01:05:51,200 --> 01:05:54,840
Speaker 1: politics wrapped up in in in how you feel about

1133
01:05:54,960 --> 01:05:57,600
Speaker 1: the latest X Men movie. Another one I can think

1134
01:05:57,680 --> 01:05:59,480
Speaker 1: of that we can edit this out if it's way

1135
01:05:59,520 --> 01:06:02,600
Speaker 1: more offen ti than I think. But I think one

1136
01:06:02,880 --> 01:06:06,840
Speaker 1: is the British exploit British English expression bloody, which I

1137
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:10,720
Speaker 1: think used to be considered incredibly offensive, like a highly

1138
01:06:11,320 --> 01:06:16,080
Speaker 1: offensive expletive, and now is an incredibly mild expletive that's

1139
01:06:16,160 --> 01:06:18,120
Speaker 1: so much so that it can appear in Harry Potter

1140
01:06:18,240 --> 01:06:22,360
Speaker 1: books and stuff. Yeah, I wonder I've never looked into it,

1141
01:06:22,400 --> 01:06:25,280
Speaker 1: but I've often wondered, like, to what extent is it

1142
01:06:25,440 --> 01:06:28,760
Speaker 1: still a little more offensive in British circles than it

1143
01:06:28,880 --> 01:06:31,560
Speaker 1: is an American because so much American usage of it,

1144
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:35,000
Speaker 1: we're just aping British usage of it without really having

1145
01:06:35,080 --> 01:06:39,160
Speaker 1: a strong cultural understanding maybe of what is being said.

1146
01:06:39,360 --> 01:06:41,680
Speaker 1: That's a good question again, maybe we're we're yet again

1147
01:06:41,760 --> 01:06:43,960
Speaker 1: doing the cargo cult of euphemism. Yeah, and you kind

1148
01:06:43,960 --> 01:06:47,240
Speaker 1: of get a guess into the like the currency equivalences

1149
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:51,240
Speaker 1: of of different insults or sorry, this wouldn't be of euphemism.

1150
01:06:51,360 --> 01:06:55,760
Speaker 1: Is the cargo cult of explotives? Okay, but let's come

1151
01:06:55,800 --> 01:06:58,360
Speaker 1: back to what we started talking about with the idea

1152
01:06:58,360 --> 01:07:00,840
Speaker 1: of the war fian view and or well, so we've

1153
01:07:00,880 --> 01:07:04,960
Speaker 1: got this this other argument from Pinker and from you know,

1154
01:07:05,040 --> 01:07:07,600
Speaker 1: cognitive neuroscience and all this. Who says they say, you know,

1155
01:07:07,680 --> 01:07:10,800
Speaker 1: the words don't really matter actually all that much. Um,

1156
01:07:11,480 --> 01:07:15,320
Speaker 1: words don't have this power, but I I don't feel that,

1157
01:07:15,800 --> 01:07:20,640
Speaker 1: I feel very strongly that Orwell was onto something. Yeah. Yeah,

1158
01:07:20,840 --> 01:07:23,200
Speaker 1: and uh and I actually found a paper that gets

1159
01:07:23,240 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 1: into this a bit. It's very good as available is

1160
01:07:25,120 --> 01:07:28,800
Speaker 1: readily available online. Two thousand and eight paper by um

1161
01:07:29,640 --> 01:07:33,440
Speaker 1: By Stanford's daniel U Casa Santo has published in the

1162
01:07:33,480 --> 01:07:37,240
Speaker 1: journal Language Learning. Uh. And the title is Who's afraid

1163
01:07:37,320 --> 01:07:41,440
Speaker 1: of the Big Bad warf Cross linguistic differences in temporal

1164
01:07:41,560 --> 01:07:44,280
Speaker 1: language and thought. So this is addressing the Wharfian view

1165
01:07:44,360 --> 01:07:47,640
Speaker 1: that language in some way determines or influences thought. Yeah.

1166
01:07:47,720 --> 01:07:50,480
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because he I'm not gonna say he

1167
01:07:50,600 --> 01:07:55,680
Speaker 1: takes a middle of the road approach. It's definitely more

1168
01:07:55,760 --> 01:07:58,480
Speaker 1: in Pinker's direction. He's not saying that the Warfian view

1169
01:07:58,960 --> 01:08:02,520
Speaker 1: is valid completely, but that there that we can't. But

1170
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:04,160
Speaker 1: but what are you saying is that we can't completely

1171
01:08:04,200 --> 01:08:10,600
Speaker 1: dismiss the power of this this war Fian Uh. Relationship

1172
01:08:10,760 --> 01:08:14,040
Speaker 1: between thoughts and words. Okay, so maybe that words don't

1173
01:08:14,440 --> 01:08:19,960
Speaker 1: totally determine thoughts, but they have some kind of influencing relationship. Yes, exactly.

1174
01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:21,640
Speaker 1: In fact, I'll read a just a quick quote from

1175
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:24,599
Speaker 1: this article to to really drive this home. Why should

1176
01:08:24,640 --> 01:08:27,639
Speaker 1: we continue to do war Fian research. One possible reason

1177
01:08:27,760 --> 01:08:31,360
Speaker 1: is that cataloging cross linguistic cognitive differences could be a

1178
01:08:31,400 --> 01:08:35,760
Speaker 1: step toward charting the boundaries of human biological and cultural diversity.

1179
01:08:36,720 --> 01:08:39,000
Speaker 1: If this is the goal, then the war Fian effects

1180
01:08:39,479 --> 01:08:43,120
Speaker 1: most worth findings should be extreme instances in which differences

1181
01:08:43,160 --> 01:08:49,080
Speaker 1: between languages produced radically different experiences of reality in their speakers. Alternatively,

1182
01:08:49,320 --> 01:08:53,840
Speaker 1: cross linguistic cognitive differences could be tools for investigating how

1183
01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:57,360
Speaker 1: thinking works, and in particular, for investigating the role of

1184
01:08:57,439 --> 01:09:01,639
Speaker 1: experience and the acquisition and representation of knowledge. If people

1185
01:09:01,680 --> 01:09:06,440
Speaker 1: who talk differently from correspondingly different mental representations as a consequence,

1186
01:09:06,760 --> 01:09:11,439
Speaker 1: then mental representations must depend in part on these aspects

1187
01:09:11,479 --> 01:09:15,560
Speaker 1: of linguistic experience. If discovering the origin and structure of

1188
01:09:15,600 --> 01:09:19,600
Speaker 1: our mental representations is the goal, then cross linguistic cognitive

1189
01:09:19,640 --> 01:09:23,320
Speaker 1: differences can be informative, even if they are subtle, and

1190
01:09:23,479 --> 01:09:26,640
Speaker 1: even if their effects are largely unconscious. Whether or not

1191
01:09:26,760 --> 01:09:31,000
Speaker 1: they correspond to radical differences in speakers conscious experiences of

1192
01:09:31,080 --> 01:09:35,320
Speaker 1: the world, Warpian effects can have profound implications for the

1193
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:38,320
Speaker 1: study of mental representation. Okay, so yeah, he is taking

1194
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:40,720
Speaker 1: maybe I would call that a mental view. Even if

1195
01:09:40,840 --> 01:09:43,920
Speaker 1: even if he's saying, like the war Fian hypothesis that

1196
01:09:44,040 --> 01:09:49,560
Speaker 1: language determines thought is wrong, Uh, there's still influences that

1197
01:09:49,680 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 1: are worth investigating. Yeah, yeah, well I would say that. Yeah, yeah,

1198
01:09:53,280 --> 01:09:55,879
Speaker 1: I think that's the that's the point, like that, essentially

1199
01:09:55,960 --> 01:10:00,519
Speaker 1: that language is still too powerful, it's too ubiquitous, it's

1200
01:10:00,840 --> 01:10:03,040
Speaker 1: playing some sort of role. It's do we just have

1201
01:10:03,160 --> 01:10:05,519
Speaker 1: to It's just to what extent and in which cases

1202
01:10:05,600 --> 01:10:09,280
Speaker 1: it's most transformative. Interesting. Well, so I wanted to end

1203
01:10:09,360 --> 01:10:11,680
Speaker 1: by thinking about a little more about what is the

1204
01:10:11,720 --> 01:10:15,280
Speaker 1: effect of using euphemisms on our minds and on our culture,

1205
01:10:16,000 --> 01:10:18,519
Speaker 1: Because when you come up with terms like, you know,

1206
01:10:18,600 --> 01:10:22,080
Speaker 1: the euphemism treadmill, I'm not saying Pinker necessarily meant it

1207
01:10:22,160 --> 01:10:25,040
Speaker 1: this way. I detect a little bit of amusement on

1208
01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:29,320
Speaker 1: his part, but I'm not saying he definitely meant it

1209
01:10:29,520 --> 01:10:32,160
Speaker 1: to be a term of derision. But you do get

1210
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:34,240
Speaker 1: this idea of a treadmill being a thing that's sort

1211
01:10:34,240 --> 01:10:39,160
Speaker 1: of like useless cycle. Uh, And it's not necessarily useless

1212
01:10:39,160 --> 01:10:41,280
Speaker 1: according to some thinkers. And I wanted to talk about

1213
01:10:41,280 --> 01:10:44,919
Speaker 1: an essay uh done for aon magazine in twenty sixteen

1214
01:10:45,080 --> 01:10:49,640
Speaker 1: by the Columbia University linguistics professor John mcwarder. And so

1215
01:10:49,840 --> 01:10:53,439
Speaker 1: he starts by recognizing Pinker's concept of the euphemism treadmill,

1216
01:10:53,479 --> 01:10:56,080
Speaker 1: and he gives a lot of really great examples of

1217
01:10:56,320 --> 01:10:59,000
Speaker 1: these types of treadmills throughout history. Like we talked about.

1218
01:10:59,000 --> 01:11:01,640
Speaker 1: He he talks about the evolution of the concept of

1219
01:11:01,720 --> 01:11:07,640
Speaker 1: welfare um welfare originally being like uh, you know, home assistance,

1220
01:11:08,120 --> 01:11:12,280
Speaker 1: and then welfare and then cash assistance. Where each time

1221
01:11:12,400 --> 01:11:15,320
Speaker 1: there's a new term, it sort of starts to take

1222
01:11:15,439 --> 01:11:20,240
Speaker 1: on mean classist connotations, and then you need a new

1223
01:11:20,439 --> 01:11:23,519
Speaker 1: term because it starts to be used as a term

1224
01:11:23,560 --> 01:11:27,240
Speaker 1: of abuse. But for mcwarter, this he says, this treadmill

1225
01:11:27,360 --> 01:11:30,600
Speaker 1: is not only inevitable but pretty much good in in

1226
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:35,120
Speaker 1: his words, a healthy process necessary in view of the

1227
01:11:35,160 --> 01:11:38,960
Speaker 1: eternal gulf between language and opinion. Uh and he he

1228
01:11:39,240 --> 01:11:42,639
Speaker 1: says basically that thought changes more slowly than word usage,

1229
01:11:42,720 --> 01:11:46,280
Speaker 1: but it eventually catches up. And this requires that in

1230
01:11:46,360 --> 01:11:49,760
Speaker 1: a civilized society, people are going to frequently want to

1231
01:11:49,960 --> 01:11:53,920
Speaker 1: change their euphemisms. It's an inevitable thing, and it reflects

1232
01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:57,479
Speaker 1: people's desire to be polite and civilized toward one another,

1233
01:11:58,160 --> 01:12:00,240
Speaker 1: except of course, on the Internet, where one does not

1234
01:12:00,360 --> 01:12:03,000
Speaker 1: have to be polite or ciful. But that's that's kind

1235
01:12:03,000 --> 01:12:05,920
Speaker 1: of that's a whole separate discussion right there. Right, of course,

1236
01:12:05,960 --> 01:12:08,479
Speaker 1: you're always going to have people who want to defy.

1237
01:12:08,720 --> 01:12:13,320
Speaker 1: But near his conclusion, he says, quote, the euphemism treadmill, then,

1238
01:12:13,800 --> 01:12:18,240
Speaker 1: is neither just a form of bureaucratese nor of identity politics.

1239
01:12:18,360 --> 01:12:20,680
Speaker 1: It is a symptom of the fact that, however much

1240
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:23,640
Speaker 1: we would like it to be otherwise, it's easier to

1241
01:12:23,880 --> 01:12:27,680
Speaker 1: change language than to change thought. In a sense, it's

1242
01:12:27,760 --> 01:12:30,840
Speaker 1: like you're you're simply asking someone, Look, I know you're

1243
01:12:30,840 --> 01:12:34,360
Speaker 1: not going to stop being awful anytime soon, but if

1244
01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:37,560
Speaker 1: you could at least use the language that doesn't, you know,

1245
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:40,800
Speaker 1: wear your awfulness on your sleeve, and that would be great.

1246
01:12:40,960 --> 01:12:45,559
Speaker 1: And maybe in time that outward decency will will bleed

1247
01:12:45,720 --> 01:12:49,240
Speaker 1: through to some semblance of interdecency. Right, yeah, yeah, I

1248
01:12:49,320 --> 01:12:53,400
Speaker 1: guess so. Like again, earlier, we talked about euphemisms being

1249
01:12:53,439 --> 01:12:56,920
Speaker 1: a painkiller or also being a lubricant, and in the

1250
01:12:57,040 --> 01:12:59,920
Speaker 1: sense it might be both of those things. Maybe euphem

1251
01:13:00,080 --> 01:13:03,160
Speaker 1: is UM's uh, or or finding a nicer new word

1252
01:13:03,280 --> 01:13:06,680
Speaker 1: for a word that is taken on negative connotations. If

1253
01:13:06,760 --> 01:13:10,599
Speaker 1: that's what a euphemism is, I guess um. It might

1254
01:13:10,720 --> 01:13:14,680
Speaker 1: not solve the underlying problem. It might not fix people's attitudes,

1255
01:13:14,840 --> 01:13:18,120
Speaker 1: but it might just be exactly what it seems like.

1256
01:13:18,560 --> 01:13:21,840
Speaker 1: It's a lubricant. It's a painkiller. It makes interacting in

1257
01:13:21,960 --> 01:13:25,439
Speaker 1: society easier, makes people get along a little bit better.

1258
01:13:26,080 --> 01:13:28,000
Speaker 1: I can't help but think of the term African American.

1259
01:13:28,160 --> 01:13:32,759
Speaker 1: The adoption of that term to replace various other terms

1260
01:13:33,000 --> 01:13:37,880
Speaker 1: for uh, you know, black American citizens, uh has it?

1261
01:13:38,000 --> 01:13:39,920
Speaker 1: You know it? It drives home the fact that this

1262
01:13:40,200 --> 01:13:43,800
Speaker 1: is your fellow American, This is a this is an American,

1263
01:13:44,120 --> 01:13:47,439
Speaker 1: and they have a particular origin, just as you and

1264
01:13:47,680 --> 01:13:52,320
Speaker 1: your uh you know, Caucasian or or Asian or what

1265
01:13:52,439 --> 01:13:55,680
Speaker 1: have you, just as as your your family has an

1266
01:13:55,720 --> 01:13:59,520
Speaker 1: origin somewhere else as well, like they are. These individuals

1267
01:13:59,560 --> 01:14:02,880
Speaker 1: are are not that different from you. So do you

1268
01:14:02,960 --> 01:14:06,200
Speaker 1: think that that term actually helps people change their way

1269
01:14:06,280 --> 01:14:09,400
Speaker 1: of thinking? Or is it just this just this lubricant

1270
01:14:09,520 --> 01:14:12,160
Speaker 1: that makes it easier to live in a polite society

1271
01:14:12,680 --> 01:14:15,960
Speaker 1: and get along with each other. I don't know. I

1272
01:14:16,000 --> 01:14:18,920
Speaker 1: guess I hope. I like to think I would prefer

1273
01:14:19,240 --> 01:14:22,760
Speaker 1: to live in a world where the language changes the

1274
01:14:22,840 --> 01:14:25,880
Speaker 1: way you think that in in in in having to

1275
01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:31,240
Speaker 1: call an individual something more humanizing that eventually you will

1276
01:14:31,280 --> 01:14:35,439
Speaker 1: see them in more human terms. But then again, I

1277
01:14:35,479 --> 01:14:37,760
Speaker 1: don't think any of us believe that language alone is

1278
01:14:37,800 --> 01:14:40,840
Speaker 1: the sole operator here, like that it has to has

1279
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:43,800
Speaker 1: to come as part of a larger suite of of

1280
01:14:44,400 --> 01:14:48,160
Speaker 1: of social change instruments. So yeah, I think i'd agree

1281
01:14:48,240 --> 01:14:50,640
Speaker 1: with that, and with what mcwardour is saying. But I

1282
01:14:50,680 --> 01:14:53,120
Speaker 1: guess the flip side of it is that we're accepting

1283
01:14:53,240 --> 01:14:55,760
Speaker 1: some truth of what Orwell is saying. And in many

1284
01:14:55,840 --> 01:14:59,280
Speaker 1: cases euphemisms are also going to corrupt clarity of thought,

1285
01:14:59,760 --> 01:15:03,640
Speaker 1: may guess sort of dull and irresolute, and and make

1286
01:15:03,720 --> 01:15:07,320
Speaker 1: it harder for us to resist evil. And so maybe

1287
01:15:07,520 --> 01:15:10,559
Speaker 1: maybe the case is not about whether euphemisms are good

1288
01:15:10,680 --> 01:15:13,200
Speaker 1: or bad, but just that some euphemisms are more worthy

1289
01:15:13,280 --> 01:15:18,200
Speaker 1: than others. I think. So yeah, I mean words are powerful,

1290
01:15:18,520 --> 01:15:22,439
Speaker 1: and the right euphemisms are also powerful. So all you

1291
01:15:22,520 --> 01:15:24,880
Speaker 1: can do is hope that uh, you know, whoever is

1292
01:15:24,880 --> 01:15:28,320
Speaker 1: in a position of power has the best words at

1293
01:15:28,400 --> 01:15:33,280
Speaker 1: their disposal and that cheerful note. Let's let's end by

1294
01:15:33,360 --> 01:15:38,000
Speaker 1: just discussing a few favorite euphemisms. What are some of yours, Joe?

1295
01:15:39,000 --> 01:15:41,799
Speaker 1: I love how you'll see this a lot in Europe.

1296
01:15:41,920 --> 01:15:46,360
Speaker 1: The bathroom, which is itself a euphemism. Is the WC

1297
01:15:47,040 --> 01:15:49,920
Speaker 1: that has just been reduced to a couple of letters,

1298
01:15:50,000 --> 01:15:54,640
Speaker 1: like not even water closet. I like that, like w C.

1299
01:15:54,840 --> 01:15:59,480
Speaker 1: Fields Um. I don't know if it's quite a euphemism,

1300
01:16:00,560 --> 01:16:03,840
Speaker 1: but I have always been fond of the I believe.

1301
01:16:04,479 --> 01:16:06,760
Speaker 1: I don't know if he invented the phrase, but it

1302
01:16:06,920 --> 01:16:10,280
Speaker 1: certainly shows up in Shakespeare's Othello, making the beast with

1303
01:16:10,360 --> 01:16:15,559
Speaker 1: two backs as a euphemism, or or perhaps the opposite

1304
01:16:15,720 --> 01:16:18,520
Speaker 1: for sexual intercourse. I don't know if that's a euphemism.

1305
01:16:18,600 --> 01:16:22,160
Speaker 1: That's fairly expressive, it's it's it's expressive, but it all,

1306
01:16:22,280 --> 01:16:26,240
Speaker 1: but it definitely changes the meaning of the thing, like uh,

1307
01:16:26,920 --> 01:16:28,880
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess it comes down to would

1308
01:16:28,920 --> 01:16:31,439
Speaker 1: you are there cases where you would say making the

1309
01:16:31,520 --> 01:16:35,080
Speaker 1: beast with two backs and it would be more polite

1310
01:16:35,200 --> 01:16:38,960
Speaker 1: than saying they were having sexual intercourse, they were having sex.

1311
01:16:39,040 --> 01:16:41,280
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the case. It's there must be

1312
01:16:41,360 --> 01:16:43,760
Speaker 1: another word for whatever. That type of thing is where

1313
01:16:43,800 --> 01:16:46,600
Speaker 1: you have a word or a phrase that means the

1314
01:16:46,640 --> 01:16:49,400
Speaker 1: same thing as something else and it's not more polite,

1315
01:16:50,040 --> 01:16:53,360
Speaker 1: but it's just like more I don't know, funnier, like

1316
01:16:53,520 --> 01:16:55,960
Speaker 1: making whoopie. I think that would be an example, because

1317
01:16:56,000 --> 01:16:58,479
Speaker 1: whoopi is like whoopee. It's it's fun. It's fun like

1318
01:16:58,560 --> 01:17:00,160
Speaker 1: if you were just okay here. The three choe us

1319
01:17:00,240 --> 01:17:03,000
Speaker 1: is imagine you're in a roommate scenario and you have

1320
01:17:03,120 --> 01:17:04,920
Speaker 1: to say, oh, well, I walked in on my roommate

1321
01:17:05,560 --> 01:17:09,360
Speaker 1: and um, he and his partner were making the beast

1322
01:17:09,439 --> 01:17:12,160
Speaker 1: with two backs like that, or if you were to say, well,

1323
01:17:12,160 --> 01:17:15,479
Speaker 1: I walked in on my my roommate and he and

1324
01:17:15,560 --> 01:17:18,320
Speaker 1: his partner were making whoopie. Like which of the two,

1325
01:17:19,120 --> 01:17:23,080
Speaker 1: But the two summoned vastly different images. They're both highly polite, yes,

1326
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:28,400
Speaker 1: incredibly generous. Al Right, Well, uh, I know everybody out

1327
01:17:28,439 --> 01:17:31,040
Speaker 1: there has their favorite euphemisms and uh and certainly some

1328
01:17:31,680 --> 01:17:35,360
Speaker 1: some cross cultural examples we'd love to hear, so you

1329
01:17:35,439 --> 01:17:38,320
Speaker 1: should definitely reach out to us about them. You can

1330
01:17:38,400 --> 01:17:40,200
Speaker 1: find us in a number of places, but the best

1331
01:17:40,280 --> 01:17:41,920
Speaker 1: starting point is to just go head on over to

1332
01:17:41,960 --> 01:17:43,720
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your Mind dot com because that's where

1333
01:17:43,720 --> 01:17:47,040
Speaker 1: you'll find this podcast episode, all the other podcast episodes.

1334
01:17:47,280 --> 01:17:49,280
Speaker 1: You'll find blog post videos, and a links out to

1335
01:17:49,320 --> 01:17:53,759
Speaker 1: our various social media accounts such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,

1336
01:17:54,600 --> 01:17:59,760
Speaker 1: uh Tumbler. Wherever you do your social media media eing,

1337
01:18:00,400 --> 01:18:02,240
Speaker 1: you will find us, And if you want to get

1338
01:18:02,280 --> 01:18:04,800
Speaker 1: in touch with us directly, you can always email us

1339
01:18:04,880 --> 01:18:07,200
Speaker 1: that blow the mind of how stuff Works dot com

1340
01:18:17,200 --> 01:18:19,600
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is

1341
01:18:19,640 --> 01:18:20,920
Speaker 1: it how stuff Works dot com