Euphemism of the day

Last updated on: April 17, 2014 at 8:40 am by Jane the Actuary

Euphemism of the day 2014-04-17T08:40:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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This is an excerpt from a letter-to-the-editor in today’s “Trib Local,” the weekly local news supplement in the Chicago, referencing an earlier article in which the author described her mother’s death, in which the author was somewhat shell-shocked at her mother’s last several hours being ones of pain and the embarassment of incontinence, rather than the peaceful deathbed scenario that we all imagine (and see portrayed in movies and books).

So the letter-writer says,

Last year, Vermont became the fourth state in the nation to affirmatively support end-of-life support in dying, the first to do so through the state legislature. I hope articles like this will be a wake-up call to start the conversation in Illinois about end-of-life choices.

Possibly there may be many who do not want to make a decision in how they die, due to their religious and/or other beliefs — and so be it. But our Constitution guarantees separation of church and state, and I hope our state might be open to explore a compassionate option to alleviate unnecessary pain for the dying.

I could use this article as a springboard to discuss assisted suicide, and Wesley J Smith at his Human Exceptionalism blog, provides copious details on how far assisted suicide and euthanasia have gone in countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

But what startled me was the euphemism: if you didn’t know the context (Vermont legalized assisted suicide in 2013), would you recognize that the letter-writer was referring to assisted suicide when she wrote “support in dying”? Wouldn’t you think otherwise that this was referring to something more like hospice care? And would you really think of describing assisted suicide as “a compassionate option to alleviate unnecessary pain for the dying”? Wouldn’t you think of that as a description around providing painkillers to whatever degree necessary without red tape?

We do this all the time, of course. Or, at least, those with whom I disagree do this all the time: “pro-choice” to describe support for abortion. “Path to citizenship” to describe mass legalization of illegal immigrants, and “undocumented immigrants” or “immigrants without proper papers” to describe the illegal immigrants themselves.

But I also wonder: do I use euphemisms myself, without being aware of it?

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