Ammarah Sakrani

A euphemism is a term used to replace any word or expression that seem unpleasant or may offend someone. The disadvantage that comes with using euphemisms is that it extends the line between negatives and positives. Phrases that may fall in the middle are now subjected to an extreme end. Why do we need euphemisms? Why do words fall out of usage? Such questions will forever be asked as language change is inevitable. Some may describe this continuous change of language as progressive and healthy. However, is it really healthy if you have to rapidly keep changing language in order to sugarcoat things?

Political correctness has worthy intentions of treating all people equally. Language is changed in order to not offend anyone due to increased sensitivity. Words like; ‘welfare’, ‘crippled’ have gone through a pejoration and now have a negative connotation. Peoples’ opinion on these words could have changed due to external factors and as their thoughts changed, there was a need for new lexis; ‘handicapped’, ‘special needs’, ‘challenged’. When using the new lexis, it can make people feel included and accounted for.

The discourse a society uses is called their sociolect. When the society started to give words like ‘crippled’ negative associations, what started off as an understanding term, it would change to be perceived as offensive. These negative associations affect our conversational face (our sense of self and how we view our worth and image). A person may use negative politeness in their conversation to prevent anyone from getting offended and keep conversations as harmonious as possible.

We can harshly oppose that making people feel welcome is not your job and offence is taken, not given. When using negative politeness, you are restricting the speaker’s freedom of speech in order to cater to other people’s feelings. You just have to accept the consequences that come with freedom of speech. (e.g., a person can say the most horrific and hateful thing ever and while it is not directed towards you, you can get offended due to morals playing a role and how certain language is deemed unacceptable in society. On top of that, the speaker can get hated on but you cannot physically stop the speaker from saying what they like).

Language is closely tied to social media. Social media has caused language to rapidly change and new neologisms to emerge. The lexis deemed appropriate in real life is different to social media. E.g. ‘chronically online’ people want euphemisms for everything, these people want you to put trigger warnings for capital letters. Some chronically online people also put great importance on things like neopronouns and find great offence in people using them improperly. In real life, most people will not bother with that. A less extreme example would be using neutral terms instead of gendered terms in order to not offend anyone. E.g. Asking someone about their ‘partner’ rather than their girl/boyfriend. This is rooted in self-identity and using incorrect words would be writing off an important part of a persons self-identity.

As self-identity is heavily influenced by language, we make sure to put descriptors after the person’s name so as to not completely identify them with the descriptor. E.g. a crazy man vs that man is crazy. This shows us that language comes first, then thought as the language we use can affect our perspective.

Words like ‘crippled’, disabled’ are used to describe a condition a person has. When words like crippled’ get a negative connotation, it affects the persons self as it can make them feel excluded due to how direct the word is. Due to the nature of euphemisms – they expire – ‘challenged’ could also pejorate as it can be exclusive. People might argue that having a disability doesn’t may them any different than others.

This is all rooted in social stratification. The language surrounding ‘challenged’ may make them seem ‘less’ and therefore affecting the groups social value. This will obviously not happen until the group themselves starts viewing the word in this negative light as only a person part of a certain group can truly advocate for them because they have personal experience.

The context of a person’s social identity is closely bound up with their language in all areas of life. The image we have of ourselves is influenced and altered by the individuals, social groups and situations we encounter. In effect, language will evolve forever and someone may always find something to get offended about due to the increased awareness and promotion to being more accepting to other people.