Bob Holder: A Dictionary of Euphemisms:
How Not To Say What You Mean. Oxford UP, 4th edition 2007.
It may seem ungrateful to critically review one of one's Christmas presents, and so it might be if the present were totally unsolicited, but the book was on my Amazon wants list so the giver is in no way to blame for choosing an inferior gift. And in fact it is not inferior, but quite a fun book, and useful too, even if I do have the reservations set out below.
It has had rather a chequered history, having first been published in 1987 by Bath University Press (where the author happened to be Pro-Chancellor, whatever that is, at the time) under the title of
A Dictionary of British and American Euphemisms. Two years later Faber published a revised edition. Then in 1995 Oxford University Press published what is here called the second edition (wasn't the Faber revised edition the second?) under the present title. The third edition (no date given) was published under the title
How Not To Say What You Mean and then this edition reverted to
A Dictionary of Euphemisms. Talk about complicated!
A good working definition of euphemism is the one I found in an old edition of the
Oxford Companion to English Literature - "substitution of a less distasteful phrase or word for a more accurate but more offensive one"
. This is much the same as the author's own definition, taken from
Fowler's Modern English Usage - "the use of a mild or vague or periphrastic expression as a substitute for blunt precision or disagreeable use"
, though the latter is a bit more verbose.
The problem is, the author doesn't actually understand the difference between euphemism and pure synonyn nor between
euphemism and slang.
Take for example his entry for the word
potation as a euphemism for an alcoholic drink
. It is not a euphemism at all. It is just a pompous sounding synonym. And the expression
wet nurse. That is just the traditional way of describing a woman hired to breast feed an infant. I see no euphemism in its use.
Likewise his claim that the word
ticker is a euphemism for the heart. It isn't a euphemism, just a slang word, as is the word
reefer for a marijuana cigarette, and
plastered and
wasted for drunk. The whole book is riddled with such examples of simple synonyms, slang words and expressions, and colloquialisms with which the author has padded his text out.
But perhaps I am unjust. It may not be deliberate padding but merely a result of his being unable to grasp the subtle differences between these concepts. Perhaps he is, to use some of his own entries, "backward" or "a penny short of a pound". And now I'm being unkind.
To be fair the
Dictionary of Euphemisms is a jolly good read of the dipping into sort, with lots to learn, lots to laugh at, and some things to disagree with. I particularly like the author's dry explanations of what phrases do not mean. For example of his entry for
not all there (meaning stupid or confused) he says "It describes a mental state, not that of an amputee." I end with an entry which is typical of the author's gentle humour.
win home obsolete Scottish to die
Christian devout use of the death of another, although the speaker seldom seemed anxious to secure a similar victory for himself.
