Euphemisms, Doublespeak, Jargon, Etc.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

So what is funny about Afternoon Delight....I always quite liked that song.......has it been used in a movie since the 70's? Is it in a silly context there?

[Tyler]

What's funny about the song is the way it skyrocketed to the top of the charts in 1976.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Ooohhhh.....ok! A bit like our group then! :-)
Relyt....you crack me up!

[Ken, Moderator]

You mean, I should change this group's title from Language & Grammar to Arrested & Development? Or maybe Arrested & Underdeveloped would be more accurate? Were I to do it, membership here would SKYROCKET. (Dedicated to relyt -- any man who remembers 1976 is OK in my book because he's probably as old as I am.)

[Ruth]

Shoot, man. I remember 1946.

[Ken, Moderator]

Alas, there was a lot of shooting of man that year. Luckily, I was still in the Great Dark to which I shall someday return...

[Ruth]

The Great Shooting was over in 1945. I remember that day, too.

[Ken, Moderator]

Oh yeah. Off a year. Then came the "Golden Era" (boring, but safe and prosperous) called the 50s under the stewardship of Uncle Ike. Of course, calling the 50's worry-free is forgetting Korea, among other things, but Americans were said to be remarkably insular back then. Now we're unremarkably so.

[Tyler]

I was a tender reed back then, NE.

But yes, Debbie, I've noticed the membership going up. When I joined it was about 190. This is the in place to be.

Ruth, I wish I could have been one of the hipsters back in '46. The crooners wouldn't appeal so much to me; but the big band syncopations -- now that was good music.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Glenn Miller......Bing.......(sigh)
I remember 1976 very well...my first year away from home....YEEHAH!!!!!!
What are your earliest memories of a world event? (Ruth got me thinking). Mine is of President Kennedy's assassination...my mother cried and it was my first conscious memory of learning the meaning of a word I was unfamiliar with (assassinate).

[Ruth]

My earliest memory of a world event is Pearl Harbor. I was 6. It was a Sunday. My parents and grandmother sat in the living room all day hanging onto every word from the radio. They kept telling my younger brother and me to "go play outside."

We did. And dug up the flowerbed by the front porch. I don't remember that we even got scolded.

[Ken, Moderator]

Yeah, I went through a Big Band phase after I read The Last Convertible. I loved that stupid book (it's bestseller schlock) but have no desire to revisit it. Anyway, I'm particularly fond of Gene Krupa's beat in "Sing, Sing, Sing." Benny Goodman, I think, was on the clarinet. I like Harry James, too, of course, and that Artie Shaw dude.

OK. My earliest memory was Garfield's assassination. I kept calling him President Garlic and when my mother said he was killed I went out and played some marbles (better than losing them).

Uh, aren't we supposed to be in the Kitchen Sink Chat thread with this? If I don't come up with a euphemism soon...

How about "fib," which is a kindness for "bald-faced lie"? And what is the etymology of the expression "bald-faced" as a hyphenated adjective, I wonder?

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Fibber!!!!!!!!! NE...I reckon your first memory is probably the same as mine! I was 4 years old. And if you remember Garfield's death then you should have been in your grave at least 35 years ago!!!!
A euphemism for bald-faced lying? Fantasising?

And I just googled the etymology....it is a corruption of bold-faced liar which dates back some 400 years....bald-faced only surfaced some 70 years ago or so.

[Ruth]

Bald-faced lie. Not to be confused with fibula.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

hahahahahaha!!!!

[Ken, Moderator]

That was very humerus, Ruth.

[Ken, Moderator]

(And now we should be in the Pun Thread. I tell you -- thread drift is rampant.)

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Fluidity of motion.........It's the beauty of language...it is meant to cross boundaries!

[Ken, Moderator]

So that's why we're in Luxembourg!

[Terena]

My earliest memory is the Moon Walk, 1969. Not a clear memory, because I was only two, but the impression of excitment, shouting, celebrating, and my father bouncing me in his arms.

Otherwise, I clearly remember Nixon being re-elected because my father worked on the local McGovern campaign and everyone was so upset. I was a child, but if you grow up in a political family in the early 70's, you knew a lot about Vietnam and Watergate.

[Tyler]

I always said "bold-face" and not "bald-face" because the idea of a lie in that kind of print tickled my imagination. But actually, the "bold" only refers to the insolence of the speaker. In days gone by, calling someone "bold" meant something different from today.

Either way, a fib is more like a white lie than a bold-face lie. Scarlett O'Hara loved little white lies, and told a fib or two to get that $300. Ayn Rand hated even white lies because they were cut from the same cloth as all lies. Therefore, I conclude that Ayn Rand hated Scarlett O'Hara. But the woman had not an ounce of subtlety about here in any case. Who, really, could look in Vivien Leigh's eyes and accuse her of a bold-face lie? It was just a little fib.

BTW, I have no memory of any historic event on the scale of Pearl Harbor. I sometimes wonder if a real generation gap of some sort stems from that fact, and whether I'm better or worse off for it.

[Ken, Moderator]

How about 1968? What did they used to call horrible years in Latin? That would be it.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Annus horribilis

[Bluedaizy]

OMG, my neighbors are going to call the police because of the skyrocketing screams of laughter coming from my house!

oops, I miss a day and there's a whole new conversation going on! :)

[Amy]

For all those "bald-face" enthusiasts the OED has an entry but it's definition is actually "the widgeon" or someone with a real bald face; or a variety of whiskey. Bold-faced is listed as "having a bold or confident face or look; usually impudent." I think that makes bald-face even funnier!

[Marian]

When I was in Hi school, we thought "big Band" music was for old fogies. Vaughn Munroe, Perry Como were OK, but Stan Kenton, June Christie Dizzy Gillespie & Be-bop (anyone remember that?) What my crowd really liked was classical & I always listened to the Met. Opera broadcast on ABC on Sat. afternoons. I usually dressed in a black turtleneck, black skirt, & black nylons. Actually we hated the popular or "commercial" music of our day. The greatest insult we could give to anything was that it was too "commercial".This was late 40's, early '50's.

[M.D.]

I just learned a new word that encompasses mixed metaphors, malapropisms, bushisms, etc.: catachresis. Not that I would suggest to change this topic title...

[Ken, Moderator]

What about dogachresis?

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Wish I was richascroesus

[Summer]

Responding message 14: by Ruth (sort of)

In our house, we call the end of the bread the culi. This year, when visiting our cousins in Italy, my sister almost asked me to pass her the culi, but stumbled because she didn't want to offend our hosts. This resulted in stammering and whispering. Finally my cousin asked what was going on so I told her and she said, “Oh we call it that too!” Apparently some slang crosses over oceans.

[Ruth]

Oh that's interesting, Summer. My father came from Italy.

[Boreal Elizabeth]

too much of a good thing

[Tyler]

The Telegraph carried a list by Oxford of the ten most irritating expressions these days:

1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It's a nightmare
8 - Shouldn't of
9 - 24/7
10 - It's not rocket science


I don't really mind #8. #1 should be eliminated at all costs. I've been might tired of #5 for some years, and now the University has validated my feelings. #9 had a good run, but now it's time to retire it.

Do you all concur? At the end of the day, I personally think, with all due respect, that at this moment in time we absolutely shouldn't of let these clichés take hold of our lives 24/7 -- though fairly unique, it's not rocket science that their use has become a nightmare.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newst...

[Tyler]

I tell you, Bunny, I'm sure I could conduct a business meeting now.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

'Shouldn't of' has the same effect on me as fingernails drawn down a blackboard!!!!

Nice bit of work there Tyler....you could come and conduct educational workshops in NZ!

[Ruth]

It's a test for the ears. Are we really hearing "should of" or are we hearing "should've?"

[Ken, Moderator]

I'm shocked (and, as required by law, appalled) that these two didn't make the Top 10:

1. "I would have to say that..." (Just say it!!!)

2. "The fact of the matter is..." (Grrrr!!!)

I'm also noticing an uptick in educational jargon for the term "piece," as in "We can't forget this piece which..." or "One piece that should be mentioned is...." It's the new "stuff" or "thing."

[David]

When a lawyer says "with all due respect" to a judge he's saying no respect is due. In other words, it's a euphemism for "f*** you, judge."

In my daughters' preschool, the following were taboo:

"Whatever."
"Yeah, right."
"Duuuuh."

[Ken, Moderator]

"Like..." is the bane of every school teacher (it's 40% of most students' vocabulary).

[Savvy]

One that always gets me...

"To tell you the truth.."

Okay, so usually you don't tell me the truth???...what???

[David]

Then there are these:

"And he's all . . ."
"That's what I'm all about."
"That's what I'm screamin'."

[Savvy]

or
"Let me be honest with you..."
"To be honest...."

already I'm thinking you normally lie!

[Tyler]

And another sentence weakener I'm personally guilty of is, "It seems to me ...".

[David]

I get annoyed when people say "I feel" when they should be saying "I think."

[David]

Then there's "tell us how you really feel," which means, "Whew, that was really over the top! Take a valium, perhaps?"

[Ken, Moderator]

"I'd tell you, but I'd have to kill you."

I think we have to kill that expression. It's jumped the shark.

[Summer]

I have a lot of trouble staying on track with one of my professors' lectures. He has a particular (Dare I say odd? What if he reads this?) diction and rolling emphatic speech pattern that lulls me to sleep. Sometimes, I feel as if he’s reading us to sleep. He uses fillers such as "sort of", "basically", and "typically" repetitively, sometimes multiple times in a single sentence. He also uses “and so forth” and “by and large” frequently. It adds nothing to the lecture; in fact, I find it very distracting. I know he knows about it because he records the lectures and uploads them as podcasts and one of my classmates told him that he was considering basing a drinking game off them. In any case, find it much easier to listen to him on podcast then in the classroom. Somehow, I can listen and do something else fairly simple like write up my note cards and it filters out most of the fillers. Does this make me a terrible audience?

[Ken, Moderator]

Once had a guy who peppered his lectures with ergo... Ai-yi-yi.

[Ruth]

I had a trigonometry instructor in college who lectured with his face to the board, madly scribbling equations, switch-hitting with the chalk so he never had to turn around, all the time addressing almost every sentence to "okay people."

Gack, the memory still makes me plotz.

[Summer]

Thanks for sharing your similar experiences. I feel less dorky now.