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Anybody who wants to call a spade a spade should be forced to use one…

Okay, okay, sometimes I succumb to euphemisms -especially if I’m tired; I mean well, though. But if you insist on using substitutes I think it’s better to choose words whose roots go way back to classical Greek; the word is from euphēmizein‘use auspicious words’, from eu‘well’ + phēmē‘speaking’.  By and large, euphemisms are better for most jobs than hiring troublemakers in their families: dysphemisms -derogatory or unpleasant words (I had to look it up).

I often think that a euphemism is like a player in a game who is called onto the field as a substitute, just to confuse the opposing team. The question that is often posed though, is why – or perhaps more germane- why now? Why change a perfectly good descriptive name that everybody has grown to accept for something new and more catchy? Is it like Fashion, and being out of it; or the arrival a different Zeitgeist that is annoyed by how demeaning or non-descriptive the name has become?

I could live with that if the reason were explained beforehand so I wouldn’t seem rude, or old fashioned. Perhaps I should strive to be more au courant with things around me: read more social media posts, watch more panel shows on TV, learn how to stream properly. Or, more in keeping with my reading habits, search for more erudite explanations of why I seem to be the only person who thinks things should remain unchanged as Time marches on.[i]

For example, I am encouraged to believe that ‘the reason for this rolling semantic renewal is that the meanings of words are, in actual usage, messier than their dictionary definitions cast in the tidy eternity of print might make them seem. We store words in our brains amid webs of association with experiences, impressions and other words. As a result, a word is always redolent of various associations, metaphorical extensions, beyond its core meaning.’ In other words I have failed to notice the different Weltanschauung that has surrounded me like the exhaust fumes from the nearby street and to which I have become indifferent.

A euphemism is ‘not a tic or a stunt. It is an inevitable and, more to the point, healthy process, necessary in view of the eternal gulf between language and opinion. We think of euphemisms as one-time events, where one prissily coins a way of saying something that detracts from something unpleasant about it. That serves perfectly well as a definition of what euphemism is, but misses the point that euphemism tends to require regular renewal.’ 

As the essay metaphorically points out: a name ‘is like a bell tone, with a central pitch seasoned by overtones. As the tone fades away, the overtones can hang in the air. Words are similar, with opinion, assumption and, more to the point, bias as equivalents to the overtones.’ I like that description; I wish I’d thought of it first…

My background is in Medicine though (obstetrics and Gynaecology to be precise) and I remember feeling surprised when the historically descriptive and useful phrase, Venereal Disease, was shelved, along with my medical student’s easily rememberable acronym, VD. It encompassed pretty well everything you needed to know about the condition (we had all studied Latin in Pre-med and were titillated to think of the etymology: that it was from the Latin venereus[from venus, vener– ‘sexual love’] + al.) Tricks like that are helpful when there are so many other words that are more difficult to remember, let alone understand when and where to use them (think Neisseria gonorrhoea –or worse, Diphyllobothrium latum: fish tapeworm which, admittedly, seldom consorts with Neisseriads).

VD, as luck would have it, metamorphosed into sexually transmitted disease. Still, that had its bright side because it became another one of those shortenable things: STD – a little longer than VD, to be sure, and yet as equally easily memorizable. But then, damned if they didn’t change it again: STD  became STI (sexually transmitted infection) -not because its previous name was difficult or anything, but more because STD had become stigmatized if you can believe it. I mean how much longer before the last I is changed to a C to explain (to those listening in the waiting room) that the C just means Condition, so as not to worry anybody who had been dating somebody with STI, or whatever.

Frankly, now that I’m retired and no longer have to explain the shifting terrain of initials and how worried you as my patient should be, I am allowed to watch from the gallery…

But I digress. There was a time when the medical profession honoured (or dishonoured I suppose) their professional colleagues by naming diseases after them. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (itself now itself thankfully shortened to US-CDC) originally called HIV/Aids “the 4H disease” as it seemed to only affect Haitians, homosexuals, heroin users and haemophiliacs, whilst the press referred to it as GRID – which was short for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency. Thank god more astute minds eventually prevailed.

Nothing, I might add, has been named after me (with the possible exception of a large boulder attached to the shoreline of the St Lawrence River and on which a youthful me used to stand and proclaim it to be G’s Island to anyone passing by). In retrospect I’m surprised they let me into Medical School.

Again, I digress. A not too dissimilar fate awaited the naming of a tick-borne disease in children playing, not on a large boulder, but in the town of Lyme, Connecticut. Yes: Lyme Disease. Far from changing the name and avoiding the harm it might do to the town’s reputation, the town embraced it. Ever proud of the American capitalist spirit, the Lyme county store decided to sell T-shirts with pictures of ticks on them, and to name their the local lacrosse team ‘the Ticks.’

I don’t mean to make light of this adaptation, but I would not buy T-shirt with the acronymic STI on it as a logo- although I admit I would be tempted by a depiction of large rock with a spirited child standing on top of it and claiming possession in the name of his family. Of course, in my dotage I no longer wear tee shirts with risqué subjects depicted thereon… Well, actually, when I was working in New Zealand, I did buy a delightful T: one that featured a picture of a naughty-looking sheep winking at any onlookers as it posed in lipstick, titled Sheep Thrills… But I was younger in those days, and never wore it to the hospital outpatient STD clinic, or anything…

[i] https://aeon.co/essays/euphemisms-are-like-underwear-best-changed-frequently

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