词汇大师--Finding Comfort in Euphemisms When Words..

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: There's a new book called "Euphemania: Our Love Affair With Euphemisms²."
RS: Author Ralph Keyes defines euphemisms as comfort words that we use in place of words that make us feel uncomfortable.
RALPH KEYES: "Today we no longer feel any strong need to say 'gad³' or 'golly' instead of God. And yet euphemisms reflect changing values. We're much more likely today to make euphemisms out of words for money or money-related matters, for war, for death.
"If we aren't comfortable saying we 'slaughter⁴' meat, we 'butcher' meat, we can always say we 'process it.' I was recently at a park in California and at the entrance to the park it said 'Feral pig depredation⁵ in process.'"
AA: "Huh?"

　　RALPH KEYES: "Depredation. Yeah, huh, exactly."
AA: "Feral pig -- oh, I get it."
RALPH KEYES: "A lot of pigs are going to die. But we're not comfortable saying 'die.' If you walk through old graveyards⁶, and I've done this, sometimes even the old, old tombstones would talk about 'Worms are eating his corpse⁷' and 'Soon, you shall be like me.' Nowadays we wouldn't dream of using words like those. You know, people 'pass,' they 'pass on,' they 'went over,' you know, they were 'called home.'"
AA: Well, interestingly, one thing I learned from your book is what 'consumption' is. I'd been hearing that word all my life and never really knew what it was. Why don't you tell us what consumption is?"
RALPH KEYES: "Well, this one is personal to me because my great-grandmother, Myrtie Lacey, died of consumption. And it was only quite a few years later that I learned that consumption is an old-time euphemism¹ for tuberculosis⁸. Tuberculosis used to be the biggest killer⁹, and so we came up with lots of euphemisms for that disease, the most common one being 'consumption' because tuberculosis 'consumed' the body."
RS: "Do euphemisms change over time? In your research did you find that?"
RALPH KEYES: "Oh, yes.  We're always clever about finding new ways to express ourselves. One thing I saw and included in the book was the word 'canoe.' [It] showed up as an old-time euphemism for sex. Well, I've since learned that 'going canoeing' is the full euphemism.
"Now, why is that a euphemism? Well, because in a time when couples were supposed to be chaperoned when they were out together, they quickly discovered that if they went out in a canoe, there wasn't room for a third person. And today we say 'hook up.'"
AA: "Well, you know, and on a somewhat related topic, lately there was all this controversy¹⁰ about the new increased security measures at the airports in the US, and this new phrase 'Don't touch my junk' has become -- "
RALPH KEYES: "Isn't that amazing? Where did 'junk' come from?"
AA: "And, of course, we're talking about 'privates' Laughter
RALPH KEYES: "Privates, exactly. Thank you, Avi."
RS "'Private parts.'"
AA: "'Private parts,' to use the technical term."
RALPH KEYES: "Right."
RS: "You talk about how our values are changing. How do you see through euphemisms that our lives are changing?"
RALPH KEYES: "Well, you can tell what issues we're concerned about most. The oldest known euphemism is bear. 'Bear' is a derivation of 'bruin,' which means 'the brown one.' And some of our earliest ancestors in northern Europe were so afraid of this large, ferocious¹¹ animal that they wouldn't even say its actual name. Bear has now become, of course, the standard word for this animal. We no longer know what the original word was."
AA: Today's euphemisms suggest to Ralph Keyes that people are likely to more afraid of bear markets than actual bears.
RALPH KEYES: "You don't even use the word money. You say 'assets,' 'liquid assets.' You don't 'borrow' money, you 'leverage¹².' You don't 'pay off' loans, you 'deleverage.' You know, markets don't 'fall,' there's an 'equity¹³ retreat' or a 'market correction.'"
AA: "'Equity' itself -- these home equity loans, the way that people were borrowing against their homes. They used to be called second mortgages."
RALPH KEYES: "Exactly. Which is a much more clear and ominous¹⁴ term -- a 'second mortgage.' It's like a second ball and chain, which is why it got changed to 'home equity loans' by the lending industry."
RS: "Just one last question, is focused on our audience of speakers of English as a foreign language. What would you recommend, what advice would you give for them studying euphemisms?"
RALPH KEYES: "Well, I'd listen very carefully for the ways people use euphemisms, because they do all the time, and you can get in trouble by either not understanding the euphemisms that are being used or using the wrong ones.
"And incidentally, this can happen even among English speakers. In the US, for example, 'top-shelf' refers to first rate [best quality]. In the UK, 'top-shelf' refers to pornography, because it's kept on a top shelf."
RS: Ralph Keyes is an author, speaker and teacher.  His newest book is called "Euphemania: Our Love Affair With Euphemisms." And that's WORDMASTER for this week.
AA: Archives are at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 euphemism   

n.婉言，委婉的说法

参考例句：

• Language reflects culture and euphemism is a mirror of culture.语言反映文化,而婉语则是各种文化的一面镜子。
• Euphemism is a very common and complicated linguistic phenomenon.委婉语是一种十分常见而又非常复杂的语言现象。

2 euphemisms   

n.委婉语，委婉说法( euphemism的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• No point is in mincing words or hiding behind euphemisms. 没有必要闪烁其词或者羞羞答答。 来自辞典例句
• No point in mincing words or hiding behind euphemisms. 没必要闪烁其词或者羞羞答答。 来自辞典例句

3 gad   

n.闲逛；v.闲逛

参考例句：

• He is always on the gad.他老是闲荡作乐。
• Let it go back into the gloaming and gad with a lot of longing.就让它回到暮色中，满怀憧憬地游荡吧。

4 slaughter   

n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀

参考例句：

• I couldn't stand to watch them slaughter the cattle.我不忍看他们宰牛。
• Wholesale slaughter was carried out in the name of progress.大规模的屠杀在维护进步的名义下进行。

5 depredation   

n.掠夺，蹂躏

参考例句：

• The synergism between erosion and corrosion is main factor resulting in slurry erosion depredation of materials.冲刷和腐蚀间的交互作用是引起材料发生泥浆型冲蚀破坏的主要因素。
• Much of the region's environmental depredation is a result of poor planning.该地区的环境破坏大都是由于规划不善造成的。

6 graveyards   

墓地( graveyard的名词复数 )； 垃圾场； 废物堆积处； 收容所

参考例句：

• He takes a macabre interest in graveyards. 他那么留意墓地，令人毛骨悚然。
• "And northward there lie, in five graveyards, Calm forever under dewy green grass," 五陵北原上，万古青蒙蒙。 来自英汉 - 翻译样例 - 文学

7 corpse   

n.尸体，死尸

参考例句：

• What she saw was just an unfeeling corpse.她见到的只是一具全无感觉的尸体。
• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming.尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。

8 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

9 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

10 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

11 ferocious   

adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的

参考例句：

• The ferocious winds seemed about to tear the ship to pieces.狂风仿佛要把船撕成碎片似的。
• The ferocious panther is chasing a rabbit.那只凶猛的豹子正追赶一只兔子。

12 leverage   

n.力量，影响；杠杆作用，杠杆的力量

参考例句：

• We'll have to use leverage to move this huge rock.我们不得不借助杠杆之力来移动这块巨石。
• He failed in the project because he could gain no leverage. 因为他没有影响力，他的计划失败了。

13 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

14 ominous   

adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的

参考例句：

• Those black clouds look ominous for our picnic.那些乌云对我们的野餐来说是个不祥之兆。
• There was an ominous silence at the other end of the phone.电话那头出现了不祥的沉默。