Euphemism of the week

Charles 1 Comment
Charles

euphemism

 

Euphemisms for ‘died’ abound. That nasty old tell-it-as-it-is d-word — nah, we can’t be doing with it. 

In a letter to the Oldie, Chris Butler alerts us to a new one: 

The department of Energy and Climate Change’s recent ‘Impact Assessment of the Introduction of Air Quality Requirements into the Renewable Heat Incentive’ leads off with an interesting sentence: “The combustion of biomass in renewable heat generation creates, through the emissions of air pollutants, a negative externality.” This ‘negative externality’ is a euphemism for killing people.

 

 

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Robyn O'Connell
11 years ago

Ahhh the good old ‘dead’ word!! I write children’s books, explaining death to children and after spending countless hours talking to children of primary age, they are not afraid of the word ‘dead’ – but us grownups sure are! There are a few reasons for this, one being we associate it with loss and the pain of grief, children do not do this, for many of that age, do not realise the permanency of it! Another reason I have found, after talking to many people in my public/grief education talks, is that they feel the word is ‘cold’ (rather like… Read more »