3.The origins of English euphemism
3.1 The religious origin of English euphemism
The earliest English euphemisms come from “taboo”. The word “taboo” comes from Togan, a kind of Polynesian. It indicates evasive language or action. The emergence of English euphemism is to meet the need of avoiding taboos. In primitive society, people can’t explain such things as ailment and some supernatural phenomena. “People have confusion between the name of the things and things themselves. The name is viewed as an extension of things. Just as the idiom says ‘Speak of devil and he appears’. Naturally the words or phrases related to such things become taboos.” In the ancient times, people had blind faith in ghosts and Gods they respected. They whispered and even feared them so they did not dare to address their names directly. They think it profane to name God. Therefore the names of gods become the earliest taboos. To speak name of gods was to evoke the divinity whose power then had to be confronted. Such dangerous practices were reserved for priests skilled in negotiating with the supernatural. So the usual way to avoid is to employ euphemisms. Therefore, for the religious need, a lot of euphemisms about religion emerged. For example, in order not to desecrate God, people in English-speaking country always use some other name for God instead of calling directly, such as “Adonai, the Almighty, Caesar’s Cruth, the Creater, Dod, Gad, Land, Lawks, Lawd.” The opposite side of god is devil, which is more terrible for people. When people refer to them, they tend to use such euphemisms to replace: D, the Big D, the Evil one, the Black one, the Goodman, Jesse, Old boy, Our father, Lord of lords, King of kings, the Light of the world, etc.
From the above mentioned, we can find that religion brings many euphemistic terms in the religious matter, especially the naming and addressing of God to the language.
3.2 The racial and national origins of English euphemism
It is known to all, the phenomenon of racial discrimination is deeply rooted in America in which “equal opportunity” is flattered by American white people as an equal right enjoyed by everyone. Due to the pressure of social public opinion, although some whites discriminate the black from their heart, they will not expose this kind of prejudice in public. Meanwhile, few people dare to humiliate and persecute blacks publicly for no reason at all. In other words, the way of discrimination becomes tactful. There are many euphemisms emerging for this reason. In the 1930s, ‘nigger’ is still a neutral noun in England, and has no meaning of humiliating blacks. But since this word has the obvious meaning of discriminating the blacks, most of people in England and Americans use some other euphemistic words, such as “colored black” instead. When talking about some other races, it does not often use the direct words that are related to color. People often use some euphemistic expression, such as the geographic name.
3.3 Historical, literary and political origins of English euphemism
From the time the Normans conquered England in 1066, English has emerged many euphemisms. At that time, the main reason to use euphemism is that the language used by the conquered is often disparaged, and is thought as gross language. The upper class surely doesn’t want to lower their status to use such words. In order to avoid using such gross words, they tend to use “the elegant words”, which originated from Latin. And these words were mixed into English gradually.
There are also many euphemisms in literary works. For example, in Hamlet, Shakespeare use the expression “The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns”(从来不曾有一个旅人回来过的神秘之国) to express his great sympathy for Hamlet. The famous American writer Mark Twain use “release” to express “die” in his work The Adventure of Tom Sawyer. Besides, politics is a fertile area for the appearance and growth of English euphemism, which is cosmetic in expression but deceptive in nature. Euphemisms of this kind are always consciously and deliberately. The cosmetic euphemism can be easily found in American English. Government’s discussion of the Vietnam War was saturated with euphemisms. Villages burned and inhabitants imprisoned were ‘Pacifications”; the war itself was not a war but a “conflict”, the “bombing” becomes “logistical strike” or “close air support”, and “killing” becomes “wasting the enemy”. These euphemisms are used to deceive and to hide the dirty business of war. The use of such political euphemisms helps government to beautify the action and prevent people from taking any anti-government action. So in order to satisfy the political needs, many euphemisms come to exist. |
