Euphemism

Euphemism (pronounced yoo-fuh-miz-uhm)

(1) An agreeable or inoffensive word or phrase substituted for one potentially offensive, harsh or blunt, used often when referring to taboo, controversial or distasteful matters.

(2) The expression so substituted.

1656: From the Greek εὐφημισμός (euphēmismós) (use of a favorable word in place of an inauspicious one, superstitious avoidance of words of ill-omen during religious ceremonies), from εὐφημίζω (euphēmízō), from εὔφημος (eúphēmos & euphemizein (speak with fair words, use words of good omen).  Despite the impression conveyed by disapproving historians like Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) the Romans, like all the cultures of antiquity, used euphemisms but it does seem true the Athenians were the most delicate of all, so careful to avoid ill-omened words they called their prison “the chamber” and the executioner “the public man” and the Furies (Erinyes) they called “Eumenides” (the kindly ones or the Venerable Goddesses).

The construct was εὖ (eû) (good; well) + φήμη (phḗmē) (a voice, a prophetic voice, rumor, talk) + -ismos (-ism).  The Greek phēmē was from φάναι (phánai) (to speak, say), from the primitive Indo-European root pha (to speak, tell, say).  The concept was well-known in Hellenic culture, the Ancient Greek aristeros (the better one) a euphemism for "the left (hand)".  In English, it was originally a rhetorical term, the broader sense of "choosing a less distasteful word or phrase than the one meant" is attested from 1793 and was in common use by the 1830s.  The most common derived form, the adverb euphemistically, dates from 1833.  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, sometimes through the Latin –ismus & isma (from where English picked up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express a finished act or thing done).  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  Euphemism & euphemist are nouns, euphemistic & euphemistical are adjectives and euphemistically is an adverb; the noun plural is euphemisms.

The surviving defendants in the dock, International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945-1946.

Euphemisms are used to substitute an inoffensive word or phrase for one thought too offensive or hurtful, especially when the topic being discussed is concerned with religion, sex, death, or excreta.  Euphemisms are also used to disguise intent; the Nazi’s “Final Solution” was actually a programme of mass-murder or genocide as it would come to be called.  Even after the enormity of that became apparent during the first of the Nuremberg trials, one of the indicted Nazis attempted to find a euphemism for the euphemism, arguing it was somehow a substantive point that the English translation of Endlösung der Judenfrage as ”Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was misleading and the German should be rendered as “Total Solution to the Jewish Question”.  Like just about everyone else, in the circumstances, the judges failed to see any distinction.  It wasn’t the only euphemism the Nazis adopted: The phrase Sonderbehandlung (special treatment) refers to the ways and means of mass-murder and the transportation of victims to their places where they would be murdered was officially "re-settlement in the east".

Noted Euphemisms

Tired and emotional: The Rt Hon Sir John Kerr AK, GCMG, GCVO, QC (1914–1991; Governor-General of Australia 1974-1977), Melbourne Cup, November 1977.

To "put to sleep" actually means to euthanize and death generally attracts many: "passed away", "bought the farm", "kicked the bucket", "departed", "lost", "gone", "pushing up daisies", "resting in peace", "met untimely demise", "meet their maker", "going to a better place", "six feet under", "sleeping with the fishes" & "eternal slumber".  Sex is also well covered including "friends with benefits", "roll in the hay" & "sleep with"; related forms being "bun in the oven" (pregnancy), "lady of the night" (prostitute), "affair" (adultery) & "long-time companion" (homosexual partner).  Rather than drunk, one might say "tired and emotional", "gave it a bit of a nudge" or "had one too many".  Politics provides a few, often words which describing lying without actually admitting it including "terminological inexactitudes", "economical with the truth" & that specialty of crooked Hillary Clinton: "misspeak".  Lindsay Lohan's lifestyle choices provided editors with some scope for the euphemistic, the terms applied to her including "controversial actress" or "troubled" (train-wreck), "tired & emotional" (affected by too much strong drink), "special friend" or "friendship" (a bit lesbionic) & "dehydrated" (affected by the use of unspecified substances).    Regarding urination, defecation and bodily functions in general, there are probably more euphemisms even than those covering death.

Students learning English are taught about euphemisms and the vital part they play in social interaction.  They are of course a feature of many languages but in English some of these sanitizations must seem mysterious and lacking any obvious connection with what is being referenced.  There are also exams and students may be asked both to provide a definition of “euphemism” and an example of use and a good instance of the latter is what to do when a situation really can be described only as “a clusterfuck” or even “a fucking clusterfuck” but circumstances demand a more “polite” word.  So, students might follow the lead of Australian Federal Court Judge Michael Lee (b 1965) in Lehrmann v Network TenPty Limited [2024] FCA 369 who in his 420 page judgment declared the matter declared “an omnishambles”. The construct of that was the Latin omni(s) (all) + shambles, from the Middle English schamels (plural of schamel), from the Old English sċeamol & sċamul (bench, stool), from the Proto-West Germanic skamul & skamil (stool, bench), from the Vulgar Latin scamellum, from the Classical Latin scamillum (little bench, ridge), from scamnum (bench, ridge, breadth of a field).  In English, shambles enjoyed a number of meanings including “a scene of great disorder or ruin”, “a cluttered or disorganized mess”, “a. scene of bloodshed, carnage or devastation” or (most evocatively), “a slaughterhouse”.  As one read the judgement one could see what the judge was drawn to the word although, in the quiet of his chambers, he may have been thinking “clusterfuck”.  Helpfully, one of the Murdoch press’s legal commentators, The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen (b 1966; by Barry Goldwater out of Ayn Rand) who had been one of the journalists most attentive to the case, told the word nerds (1) omnishambles dated from 2009 when it was coined for the BBC political satire The Thick Of It and (2) endured well enough to be named the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 2021 Word of the Year.  The linguistic flourish was a hint of things to come in what was one of the more readable recent judgments.  If a student cites “omnishambles” as a euphemism for “clusterfuck”, a high mark is just about guaranteed.

Cluster

Cluster (pronoubced kluhs-ter)

(1) A number of things of the same kind, growing or held together; a bunch.

(2) A group of things or persons close together.

(3) In US military use, a small metal design placed on a ribbon representing an awarded medal to indicate that the same medal has been awarded again (equivalent to UK & Commonwealth “bar”).

(4) In phonetics, a succession of two or more contiguous consonants in an utterance (eg the str- cluster of strap).

(5) In astronomy, a group of neighboring stars, held together by mutual gravitation, that have essentially the same age and composition and thus supposedly a common origin.

(6) In military ordnance, a group of bombs or warheads, deployed as one stick or in one missile, applied especially to fragmentation and incendiary bombs.

(7) In statistics, a naturally occurring subgroup of a population used in stratified sampling.

(8) In chemistry, a chemical compound or molecule containing groups of metal atoms joined by metal-to-metal bonds; the group of linked metal atoms present.

(9) In computer software, a file system shared by being simultaneously mounted on multiple servers.

(10) In computer hardware, two or more computers working at the same time, each node with its own properties yet displayed in the network under one host name and a single address.

(11) A collective noun for mushrooms (troop is the alternative).

Pre 900: From the Middle English cluster (bunch), from the Old English cluster & clyster (cluster, bunch, branch; a number of things growing naturally together), from the Proto-Germanic klus- & klas- (to clump, lump together) + the Proto-Germanic -þrą (the instrumental suffix), related to the Low German Kluuster (cluster), the dialectal Dutch klister (cluster), the Swedish kluster (cluster) and the Icelandic klasi (cluster; bunch of grapes).  All the European forms are probably from the same root as the noun clot.  The meaning "a number of persons, animals, or things gathered in a close body" is from circa 1400, the intransitive sense, "to form or constitute a cluster," is attested from the 1540s; the use in astronomy dating from 1727.  Cluster is a noun & verb; clustery is an adjective, clustered is an adjective & verb, clustering is a noun, adjective & verb and clusteringly is an adverb; the noun plural is clusters.  The specialized technical words include the adjective intercluster (and inter-cluster) & the noun subcluster (and sub-cluster).

Clusters various

Cluster is a (slang) euphemism for clusterfuck; drawn from US military slang, it means a “bungled or confused undertaking”.  The cluster which the slang references is the cluster bomb, a canister dropped usually from an aircraft which opens to release a number of explosives over a wide area, thus the sense of something that becomes a really big mess.  Cluster bombs began widely to be used during the Second World War, the first deployed being the two-kilogram German Sprengbombe Dickwandig (SD-2) (butterfly-bomb).  The US, UK, USSR and Japan all developed such weapons, described in typical military tradition by an unmemorable alpha-numeric array of part-numbers, the battlefield slang then being "firecracker" or "popcorn" and it wasn’t until 1950 that “cluster bomb” was first used by the manufacturers and another ten years before the term came into general use.

However, the informal compound clusterfuck was at first rather more literal, emerging in 1966 meaning “orgy” or some similar event in which intimacy was enjoyed between multiple participants.  The sense of it referencing a “bungled or confused undertaking” started only in 1969, first noted among US troops in Vietnam who, with some enthusiasm, used it both as a graphic criticism of military tactics and the entire US strategy in the Far East.  The standard military euphemism is "Charlie Foxtrot”.

There are alternative etymologies for clusterfuck but neither has attracted much support, one being it was coined in the 1960s by hippie poet Ed Sanders as “Mongolian Cluster Fuck” and this may have been an invention independent of the military use.  The other is said to date from the Vietnam War and have been the creation of soldiers critical of the middle-management of the army, the majors and lieutenant colonels, those responsible for supply and logistics, aspects of war for millennia the source of many military problems.  The insignia for each of these ranks (respectively in gold or silver), is a small, round oak-leaf cluster, hence the notion when there's a screw up in the supply chain, it's a clusterfuck.  It's a good story but etymologists have doubts about the veracity.

Students learning English are taught about euphemisms and the vital part they play in social interaction.  They are of course a feature of many languages but in English some of these sanitizations must seem mysterious and lacking any obvious connection with what is being referenced.  There are also exams and students may be asked both to provide a definition of “euphemism” and an example of use and a good instance of the latter is what to do when a situation really can be described only as “a clusterfuck” or even “a fucking clusterfuck” but circumstances demand a more “polite” word.  So, students might follow the lead of Australian Federal Court Judge Michael Lee (b 1965) in Lehrmann v Network TenPty Limited [2024] FCA 369 who in his 420 page judgment declared the matter declared “an omnishambles”. The construct of that was the Latin omni(s) (all) + shambles, from the Middle English schamels (plural of schamel), from the Old English sċeamol & sċamul (bench, stool), from the Proto-West Germanic skamul & skamil (stool, bench), from the Vulgar Latin scamellum, from the Classical Latin scamillum (little bench, ridge), from scamnum (bench, ridge, breadth of a field).  In English, shambles enjoyed a number of meanings including “a scene of great disorder or ruin”, “a cluttered or disorganized mess”, “a. scene of bloodshed, carnage or devastation” or (most evocatively), “a slaughterhouse”.  As one read the judgement one could see what the judge was drawn to the word although, in the quiet of his chambers, he may have been thinking “clusterfuck”.  Helpfully, one of the Murdoch press’s legal commentators, The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen (b 1966; by Barry Goldwater out of Ayn Rand) who had been one of the journalists most attentive to the case, told the word nerds (1) omnishambles dated from 2009 when it was coined for the BBC political satire The Thick Of It and (2) endured well enough to be named the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 2021 Word of the Year.  The linguistic flourish was a hint of things to come in what was one of the more readable recent judgments.  If a student cites “omnishambles” as a euphemism for “clusterfuck”, a high mark is just about guaranteed.

Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak leaves & Swords (1957 version).  These “de-nazified” awards were first issued by the Federal Republic of Germany (the FRG or West Germany) in 1957 and were awarded only to members of the Wehrmacht entitled to such awards.  Production of these awards ceased in 1986.

German law since the end of World War II generally have prohibited individuals from wearing the swastika but in 1957, under pressure from the newly (1955) reconstituted armed forces (the Bundeswehr (literally "Federal Defense")), the Gesetz über Titel, Orden und Ehrenzeichen (legislation concerning titles, orders and honorary signs) was amended, authorizing the replacement of Nazi-era Knight's Crosses with items with an oak leaf cluster in place of the swastika, essentially identical to the Imperial Iron Cross of 1914.

Lindsay Lohan at the Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022) premiere, New York City, November 2022.

The dress was a Valentino sequined embroidered floral lace column gown with jewel neck, long sleeves and concealed back zip.  It was worn with a gold Valentino Rockstud Spike shoulder bag in crackle-effect metallic nappa leather, complemented with Stephanie Gottlieb jewelry including diamond cluster earrings in 18k white gold and a heart shaped yellow sapphire ring with pavé diamonds.

Periphrasis

Periphrasis (pronounced puh-rif-ruh-sis)

(1) A roundabout way of expressing something; a kind of circumlocution (and often needlessly but deliberately long).

(2) An expression phrased in such fashion.

(3) In structural linguistics, expressing a grammatical meaning (such as a tense) using a syntactic construction rather than morphological marking.

(4) In rhetoric, (1) the substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name (technically a type of circumlocution) or (2) the use of a proper name as a shorthand to stand for qualities associated with it.

1525–1535: A borrowing in the sense of “a roundabout way of speaking; an instance of this” from the Latin periphrasis (circumlocution), from the Ancient Greek περίφρασις (periphrazein) (speak in a roundabout), the construct being peri- (from the Ancient Greek περί (perí) (about, around) + φράζειν (phrázein) (to declare; to express), the present active infinitive of φράζω (phrázō).The adjective periphrastic (having the character of or characterized by periphrasis) came into use in the mid eighteenth century and was from the French périphrastique or directly from the Ancient Greek periphrastikos, from periphrazein (to speak in a roundabout way).  The adjective periphrastical dates from the 1630s and the adverb periphrastically from several decades later.  The expression of disapproval “beating around the bush” applies more to circumlocution than the classic periphrasis which hints at why in linguistics “periphrasis” and “circumlocution” shouldn’t be treated as synonyms despite this being common.  The most helpful distinction between the two is that periphrasis generally is used of those cases where the figure is used with effect, while circumlocution refers to mere wordiness, sometimes to the point of obscuring meaning, thus the overlap with euphemism.  A classic periphrasis is the naming of a thing indirectly by means of some well-known attribute, or characteristic, or attendant circumstance.  A periphrastic conjugation is a conjugation formed by the use of the simple verb with one or more auxiliaries.  Periphrasis & periphrase are nouns, periphrastically is an adverb and periphrasic, periphrastical & periphrastic are adjectives; the noun plural is periphrases.

Periphrasis does have a long tradition in rhetorical as a device where a phrase is used to express a concept which could be conveyed by a single word, or where a longer expression replaces a shorter one, thus the association with descriptive or explanatory words and as well as euphemisms, there’s inevitably some overlap also with the cliché; a periphrasis can straddle the definitions and structural linguistics has a term for everything so someone particularly periphrastical might create periphrases which are also both a pleonasm and a tautology.  Constructions like “the king of the jungle” (lion), “the silver screen” (movies), “the eternal city” (Rome) or “the red planet” (Mars) are all periphrases but are also clichés.  At the margins it can be difficult but “they passed away” (they died) is probably just a clichéd euphemism.  To say of Lindsay Lohan she was “a former child star who suffered a turbulent youth” is a periphrasis whereas to mention she was prone also at times to seem “tired and emotional” is a euphemism for “too much drink”.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

During one of the sessions at the League of Nations held in 1933 before Japan withdrew from the League in response to a report commissioned by the organization which labeled Japan as the unprovoked aggressor in what Tokyo referred to as “The Chinese Attack” or “The Mukden Incident”, one member of the Japanese delegation, when asked why his government’s communiqués contained so many periphrases, responded that they were little more frequent that those in documents issued by other countries but that the unique characteristics of the Japanese language made them appear more obvious.  He may have had a point and there was an understated charm to phrases like “The Manchurian Incident” (Japan’s invasion of China) and “The Emperor Disrespect Incident” (a thwarted 1932 plot by a Korean nationalist to assassinate the Emperor Shōwa (Hirohita, 1901–1989, emperor of Japan 1926-1989).

Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) saw little use for the periphrasis, dismissing it as the “putting of things in a round-about way”, noting the easiest way of identifying the linguistic sin was the use of abstract nouns such as “basis, case, character, connexion, dearth, description, duration, framework, lack, nature, reference, regard & respect”.  Fowler also pondered cause and effect, his theory being that because abstract thought was a “…mark of civilized man”, the use of the abstract noun was a way of advertising one’s refinement, thus the proliferation he noted in the appearances of periphrases.  He cited “the year’s penultimate month” as a silly alternative to “November” although one could imagine a paragraph in which “November” has unavoidably appeared to often to be elegant that an alternative might be a handy addition.  Generally though, as usual, Henry Fowler is right.

Treadmill

Treadmill (pronounced tred-mil)

(1) A device for producing rotary motion by the weight of people or animals, treading on a succession of moving steps or a belt that forms a kind of continuous path, as around the periphery of a pair of horizontal cylinders (also called a treadwheel (archaic)).

(2) An exercise machine that allows the user to walk or run in place, usually on a continuous moving belt.

(3) Figuratively, a process or situation in which continued effort leads to or is required for remaining at a particular state or level without moving ahead; any monotonous, wearisome routine in which there is little or no satisfactory progress.

(4) By extension, anything repetitive and unending.

(5) In molecular biology, as treadmilling, the apparent locomotion of certain cellular filaments by adding protein subunits at one end, and removing them at the other, a phenomenon observed in many cellular cytoskeletal filaments.

1822: The construct was tread + mill.  Tread was from the Middle English tred, from treden (to tread), from the Old English tredan, from the Proto-West Germanic tredan, from the Proto-Germanic trudaną.  Mill was from the Middle English mylne & mille, from the Old English mylen, from the Proto-West Germanic mulīnu (mill), from the Late Latin molīna, molīnum & molīnus (mill), from the Latin verb molō (grind, mill), related to the Proto-Germanic muljaną (to crush, grind (related to the later English millstone).  Although speculative, some etymologists have suggested a relationship with the surname Milne, based on an associative link with the profession of some sort of milling.  The synonyms for the physical devices have variously included mill, stepper & everlasting staircase, and in the figurative sense, chore, drudgery, groove, labor, pace, rote, routine, rut, sweat, task, toil, travail & moil.  Treadmill is a noun, treadmilling is a noun & verb, treadmilled is a verb (the forms treadmillish & treadmillesque are both non-standard); the noun plural is plural treadmills.

Depiction of penal treadmill (the wheel).

Treadmills originated as a means of translating human energy into mechanical action to be applied to tasks such as moving water or air, grinding grain or making more efficient processes like the kneading of dough.  All such devices had since the mid sixteenth century tended to be known as treadwheels and the name treadmill wasn’t widely adopted until 1822 when a machine, invented by the son of a miller and used in English jails since 1818, was introduced into the US prison system, the intention in both places being to occupy the prisoners (on the basis of the theory that “the Devil makes work for idle hands”) and harness the energy produced for some useful purpose (although it’s unclear to what extent the devices were ever used a power source).  Designed ultimately to accommodate a dozen-odd men at a time, penal treadmills were rotating cylinders with steps built into the external surface, the prisoners essentially “walking uphill” for up to 4000 metres (14,000 feet) per day.  In prison slang the treadmills became known as “the wheel” and they were widely used in England until a decline in the late nineteenth century before use was discontinued in 1902; In the US, they were rare and extinct by mid-century, prison administrations preferring to apply the labor of inmates directly to some productive purpose.  The penal treadmill (the wheel) is best remembered as being one of the punishments to which Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was subjected during some of the two-year sentence he received after being convicted of gross indecency.

Lindsay Lohan on treadmill, Planet Fitness Super Bowl commercial, 2022.

The figurative senses allude to the way running on a treadmill requires continued effort and motion in order to remain in the same place and it’s used to refer either to one’s continued application to a specific task without making discernible progress towards the goal or the general idea of being “stuck in a rut”, leading a repetitive existence.  The idea for the familiar modern device dates from the early twentieth century and in medicine, sports and the military, variations emerged as required but by the 1970s, they became a standard piece of gym equipment and have become increasingly elaborate, linked to diagnostic and monitoring sensors and even the generation of electricity, some commercial operations granting users credits against the charges for use.

The term "euphemism treadmill" was coined by Harvard professor and psycholinguist Steven Pinker (b 1954) to describe the process by which euphemisms become as emotionally or politically loaded as the words supplanted.  It was the same idea as “euphemism cycle” which University of Oregon linguist Sharon Henderson Taylor had mentioned as long ago as 1974 but more exact in that the process is lineal rather the cyclical; once cancelled, euphemisms seem forever doomed.  Linguists call this the move from euphemism to dysphemism and while it’s impossible to know how long this has existed as a social phenomenon, the implications differ greatly between (1) purely oral cultures, (2) one where written or other records exist and (3) the digital era.  It’s now not uncommon for words individuals used decades earlier (at a time when use was either common or at least tolerated) to be produced so an understanding of historical context matters.  The word retard for example was once thought neutral and inoffensive compared with the earlier terms (idiot, imbecile & moron) which had migrated from clinical use to become slurs used as general-purpose insults against anyone.  Retard suffered the same fate and it may be the currently acceptable terminology (intellectual disability, individual with an intellectual disability & intellectually and developmentally disabled) will undergo the same process although none roll of the tongue as easily as retard and IDD is not effortless so they may endure as neutral.  The solution, Pinker pointed out, was that people should be educated to "think differently" about the subject, substituting euphemisms when progress inevitably from sanitized to slurs just kicks the can down the road. 

Structurally though, the process can be seen as inevitable because it’s associative, a product of the interplay between a descriptor and that it denotes.  Gay (a word with a centuries-long history in sexual politics) emerged in the late twentieth century as the preferred term to replace all the slurs referring to homosexuals, recommended by many even as preferable to homosexual which, despite being a neutral descriptive formation, had come to be regarded by many as a slur or term of derision.  Of course, being associative, gay soon came also to be used as a slur (and as a synonym for strange, weird, un-cool or queer (in its more traditional sense)) though the negative application is now socially proscribed so gay in its modern sense may survive.  So, the change of a descriptor doesn’t necessarily change attitudes.  Just because gay became preferred to homosexual didn’t mean homophobia vanished although, interestingly, although there’s a record of the word gayphobia from as early as the 1990s, it never caught on.

Of interest too is the succession of terms which replaced the infamous N-word.  Negro (which probably already is N-word 2.0 except in historic references) was in the 1960s used in the sense of something purely descriptive by mainstream figures such as John Kennedy (1917-1963; US president 1961-1963) and civil rights activist Martin Luther King (1929-1968) but it too came to be regarded as slur and was replaced by black.  Negro did though have an interesting history.  When first used in print in English in the mid-sixteenth century it was nearly always capitalized, the uncapitalized use beginning to appear in the late eighteenth century and becoming the standard form in twentieth although there were activists who insisted an initial capital was justified as a mark of respect, despite this being etymologically dubious.  It’s now rare because it carries connotations of earlier discrimination although remains acceptable in context, such as when used by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The mater of capitalization had also affected the use of black, some activists claiming its should be capitalized whereas white should not and that too is a purely political argument given the word initially gained currency because it was thought white’s linguistic equivalent.  In many ways that was true but it was controversial because, as used, it wasn’t exactly synonymous with Negro which is why the more precise African American became popular in the 1980s, again for reasons of seeking social equivalence (Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans et al).  Black, in practice, is often used to refer to dark-skinned people whether or not of African descent and for this reason it became unfashionable.  Other sub-sets have also moved in their own direction, the Fox News audience now preferring “the 13%”.

The distinction between colored people and people of color puzzles some but is entirely due to the historical association of colored and colored people with racism both subtle and overt.  People of color is a construction without the baggage and to date has generally be used to assert identity or in a celebratory sense and technically it’s a synonym for non-white because all those not white can so self-classify.  However, language evolves and there’s no guarantee people of color won’t emerge as a slur.  So, it can be a linguistic minefield and while the general principle is that people should be described as they wish to be described (or described not at all), at least for now, people of color seems safe.

Lindsay Lohan on treadmill, Planet Fitness Super Bowl Commercial, 2022.

Interahamwe

Interahamwe (pronounced in-ter-ah-ham-way or in-tra-ham-way)

A Hutu paramilitary organization.

1992: A constructed proper noun, described variously as (1) borrowed from a Rwanda-Rundi (a dialect of Kinyarwanda) term or (2) a creation to describe the paramilitary formation.  Literal translation is "those who work together" and is thus a euphemism, one based on the link to the Interhamwe’s preferred choice of weapons: farm tools and the machete.  The construct is intera (from the verb gutera), (to work) + hamwe (together) which is related to rimwe (one).

After the genocide

Flag of the Interahamwe.

Although most associated with the Rwandan genocide on 1994, the Interahamwe began as the innocuous youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND), then the Hutu ruling party of Rwanda.  However, like other some political youth movements (the Taliban in Pakistan; the Mandela United Football Club in South Africa et al), the circumstances of the times led to mission creep.

The Rwanda genocide had its origin in the Hutu-Tutsi civil war of 1990-1992.  As violence escalated, use of the word “Interahamwe” changed from a description of the youth group into a broad term applied to almost anyone engaged in the mass-murder of Tutsis, regardless of their age of membership of the MRND.  The translation as “those who work together” became a euphemism for “those who kill together”.  Sardonic forms are not rare in both military and paramilitary jargon; the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) category for suicide-bombers prematurely blown-up by their own malfunctioning devices is “work accident”.

Although their numbers are now much reduced, the Interahamwe retain the ambition to destabilize Rwanda and still operate from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the place to which they fled in late 1994.  From there and neighboring countries, along with other splinter groups such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), they conduct an insurgency against Rwanda although recent operations suggest they're as much concerned with the various criminal activities undertaken to ensure their survival as any political agenda.

Naff

Naff (pronounced naf)

(1) Unstylish; lacking taste; unfashionable, usually as “a bit naff”.

(2) As “naff around” or “naff about”, to goof off or fool around (now rare, perhaps obsolete).

(3) To decline a suggestion or request someone to depart (as naff off), once widely used as a journalistic euphemism.

(4) A kind of tufted sea-fowl.

(5) In slang, a range of uses, figurative and euphemistic.

1800s:  Naff has had quite a history.  It’s documented (1) (circa 1845) in slang as a noun meaning "female pudenda" which is though possibly back-slang from “fan”, a shortening of fanny (in the UK sense), circa 1940, meaning "nothing" in the slang of prostitutes' slang and (3) (circa 1959) as a verb, a euphemism for “fuck” in oaths, imprecations, and expletives (as in naff off) and (4) as a (1960s) adjective to convey "vulgar, common, despicable" or just generally “ugly or unattractive” which is said to have been used in 1960s British gay slang for "unlovely" and thence adopted into the jargons of the theatre and the armed forces.  There is one source which suggests it was gay slang for “heterosexual” but it’s undocumented; perhaps among them “unattractive” and “ugly” were synonymous on technical, if not aesthetic grounds.  In one sign of the times, in the early 1980s, the last days before deference finally died, the tabloid press generously reported Princess Anne (b 1950) had told a photographer covering an equestrian event to “naff off” rather than the “fuck off” she, apparently more than once, thought better conveyed her feelings.  He late father would probably have approved though it’s doubtful the Murdoch press will show the same restraint should ever the Duchess of Sussex be so expressive.

The use in the gay community and in entertainment circles is thought possibly from Polari. Brought to England by sailors, Polari is a distinctive English argot, examples of which appear in the record since at least the early seventeenth century.  Historically, it was associated with groups of theatrical and circus performers and in certain gay and lesbian communities and in those communities, some words still survive in their slang.  Although some of its later adoptions were influenced by other languages, most of the vocabulary was derived from Italian, either directly or through the Lingua Franca of Mediterranean ports.  The word was first recorded by researchers in the 1840s and was ultimately from Italian parlare (to speak, talk), source of the English borrowing “parle”.  Polari was also sometimes spelled parlary and pronounced puh-lahr-ee, par-lahr-ee, par·lya·ree, puhl-yahr-ee or pahrl-yahr-ee.

Naff does appear elsewhere but neither (1) the corruption of the Swiss/German surname Neff (perhaps brought to the Middle East by a Crusader or trader) or (2) the Arabic root from a word meaning “one who separates wheat from chaff” are thought to have any link to the use in English.  Naff is the adjective and (the rare) naffness the noun.  There are early (non-vulgar) twentieth century citations of naff as both noun-singular & plural but the form never caught on.  Still, it’s an adaptable word for those attracted: naff, naffness, naffer, naffism, naffology, naffest, naffhead, naffy, naffiest, naffinistic, naffstick, naffily, naffed, & naffing are all there to be used or constructed. 

Naff really is quite useful.  None of the vaguely similar words (kitsch, camp, rubbish, unstylish, clichéd, outmoded, inferior, tasteless) convey exactly the same meaning; there’s overlap with many but naff encapsulates nuances of all in a way no other word can.  It possesses a quality best understood by the distinction Susan Sontag (1933–2004) drew in her essay Notes on Camp (Partisan Review, 1964), between “a sensibility” and “an idea”.  Naffness seems a sensibility rather than an idea which lends itself to any precision in definition, a thing which can be sensed when encountered but not defined except in terms either so verbose or abstract as to not be helpful.

Being a sensibility, it’s a thing which can slur across time, some things once fashionable becoming naff and later (allegedly) ironic.

Misspeak

Misspeak (pronounced mis-speek)

(1) To speak, utter, or pronounce incorrectly.

(2) To speak inaccurately, inappropriately, or too hastily.

(3) A euphemism for a lie, usually deployed after one is caught.

1150–1200: The construct was mis- + speak.  Mis was from the Middle English mis-, from the Old English mis-, from the Proto-Germanic missa- (wrongly, badly), from the primitive Indo-European mitto (mutual, reciprocal), from the primitive Indo-European meyth- (to replace, switch, exchange, swap).  It was cognate with the Scots, Dutch, Swedish & Icelandic mis and the German mis & miss.  Related too was the French més- & mé- (mis-), from the Old French mes- (mis-), from the Frankish mis- & missa- (mis-), all from the same Proto-Germanic source.  Speak was from the Middle English speken (to speak), from the Old English specan (to speak), an alteration of the earlier sprecan (to speak), from the Proto-West Germanic sprekan, from the Proto-Germanic sprekaną (to speak, make a sound), from the primitive Indo-European spreg- (to make a sound, utter, speak).  The spelling misspeken was used in the fourteenth century to convey the meaning “say amiss", “to say sinful things” & "speak insultingly (of)”.  From the 1590s, it acquired also the meaning “to pronounce wrongly” and by 1890, to "speak otherwise than according to one's intentions”.  Related also was the Old English missprecan (to grumble; murmur).  The derived forms are misspoke, misspoken & misspeaking.

Speak, misspeak and damned misspeak

Misspeak exists in two senses.  The first is to use mispronounce something or use an incorrect word or phrase.  An example was when Warren Harding (1865-1921; US President 1921-1923), during the 1920 presidential campaign, used “normalcy” instead of “normality”.  The section of the speech with the offending word was almost aggressively alliterative…

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

… so in saying "normalcy" he may have misspoken or perhaps Harding liked the word; questioned afterwards he said he found it in a dictionary which probably was true although whether his discovery came before or after the speech wasn't explored.  Although Harding’s choice was much-derided at the time, normalcy had certainly existed since at least 1857, originally as a technical term from geometry meaning the "mathematical condition of being at right angles, state or fact of being normal in geometry" but subsequently it had appeared in print as a synonym of normality on several occasions.  Still, it was hardly in general use though Harding gave it a boost and it’s not since gone extinct, now with little complaint except from the most linguistically fastidious who insist the use in geometry remains the only meaning and all subsequent uses are mistakes.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.  

The other meaning of misspeak is as a euphemism for a lie, usually deployed after one is caught and, for politicians, it’s a handy way technically to admit mendacity without actually having to use the distasteful word "lie".  Crooked Hillary Clinton, after years of fudging, was forced to admit she “misspoke” when claiming that to avoid sniper-fire, she and her entourage “…just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base” when landing at a Bosnian airport in 1996.  She admitted she “misspoke” only after a video was released of her walking down the airplane’s stairs to be greeted by a little girl who presented her with a bouquet of flowers.  Even her admission was constructed with weasel words: “…if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement”.  That seemed to clear things up and the matter is now recorded in the long history of crooked Hillary Clinton's untruthfulness as "snipergate".

Crooked Hillary in the Balkans, 1996.

Nude & Naked

Nude (pronounced nood or nyood)

(1) Naked or unclothed, as a person or the body.

(2) Without the usual coverings, furnishings etc; bare.

(3) In art, being or prominently displaying a representation of the nude human figure.

(4) In law, a contract made without a consideration or other legal essential and therefore invalid (nudum pactum).

(5) In historic commercial use (usually for underwear), a light grayish-yellow brown to brownish-pink color (no longer in common use; now considered offensive because of the cultural implications of its association with white skin).

1531: As an artistic euphemism for naked, use was first applied to sculpture first emerged in the 1610s but the term not common in painting until the mid-nineteenth century when the idea of "the nude" was recognized as a genre.  The origin of the use in painting in the sense of "the representation of the undraped human figure in visual art" is said to date from 1708 and be derived from the French nud, an obsolete variant of nu (naked, nude, bare) also from the Latin nūdus.  The phrase idea of being in the nude (in a condition of being unclothed) emerged in the 1850s in parallel with the use in art criticism.

The adjective nude in legal use dates from the 1530s and meant "unsupported, not formally attested", the use from the Latin nūdus (naked, bare, unclothed, stripped) from the primitive Indo-European root nogw- (naked).  In legal matters it was typically applied in contract law (hence the "nude contract") and, by extension, the general sense of "mere, plain, simple" emerged twenty years later.  is attested from 1550s. In reference to the human body, "unclothed, undraped," it is an artistic euphemism for naked, dating from 1610s (implied in nudity) but not in common use in this sense until mid-nineteenth century.  The noun nudie (a nude show) dates from 1935 while the much earlier noun nudification (making naked) was from 1838, presumably a direct borrowing of the French nudification which had been in use since 1833.  The practice of nudism actually has roots in Antiquity but nudist (as applied to both practitioners and practice) came into use only in 1929 as an adjective and noun, both influenced by the French nudiste.  The noun nudism (the cult and practice of going unclothed) also dates from 1929 and in the UK, however inaccurately, it was described as a cult of German origin which had been picked up also by the more bohemian of the French, the more respectable London press linking the practice with vegetarianism, physical exercise, pagan worship and the eating of seeds.

Naked (pronounced ney-kid (U) or neck-ed (non-U))

(1) Being without clothing or covering; nude.

(2) Without adequate clothing.

(3) A natural environment bare of any covering, overlying matter, vegetation, foliage, or the like.

(4) Bare, stripped, or destitute.

(5) A descriptor of the most basic version of something sometimes more elaborate or embellished.

(6) In optics, as applied to the eye, sight etc, unassisted by a microscope, telescope, or other instrument.

(7) Defenseless; unprotected; exposed.

(8) Not accompanied or supplemented by anything else.

(9) In botany, (of seeds) not enclosed in an ovary; (of flowers) without a calyx or perianth; (of branches etc) without leaves; (of stalks, leaves etc) without hairs or pubescence.

(10) In zoology, having no covering of hair, feathers, shell etc.

(11) In motorcycle design, a machine in which the frame and engine are substantially exposed by virtue of screens and fairings not being fitted.

Pre 900: From the Middle English nakede & naked (without the usual or customary covering" (of a sword etc)) from the Old English nacod (nude, bare, empty or not fully clothed); related to the Old High German nackot, the Old Norse noktr and Latin nudus; cognate with the Dutch naakt, the German nackt, the Gothic naqths; akin to the Old Norse nakinn, the Latin nūdus, the Greek gymnós and Sanskrit nagnás.  Source was the Proto-Germanic nakwathaz, also the root of the Old Frisian nakad, the Middle Dutch naket, the Old Norse nökkviðr, the Old Swedish nakuþer and the Gothic naqaþs and ultimate source the primitive European nogw (naked), related to the Sanskrit nagna, the Hittite nekumant, the Old Persian nagna, the Lithuanian nuogas, the Old Church Slavonic nagu, the Russian nagoi, the Old Irish nocht and the Welsh noeth.  As applied to qualities, actions, etc, use emerged in the early thirteenth century, the phrase “naked truth” first noted in 1585 in Alexander Montgomerie's (circa 1550-1598) The Cherry and the Slae.  The phrase “naked as a jaybird (1943) was earlier referenced as “naked as a robin” (1879); the earliest known comparative based on it was the fourteenth century “naked as a needle”.  “Naked eye” is from 1660s, the form unnecessary in the world before improvements in lens grinding technology led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes.  The adjective nakedly (without concealment, plainly, openly) was from circa 1200.  The noun nakedness was from the Old English nacedness (nudity, bareness).

Nude or naked?

In many places the words may correctly be used interchangeably.  In law, a nude and a naked contract are the same, a pact which is unenforceable because if doesn’t possess all the elements required to be valid.  The legal maxim nuda pactio obligationem non parit signifies a naked promise which is a promise without anything being provided in return.  Nuda pactio obligationem non parit thus does not create a legal obligation.

Kenneth Clark. The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form. Bollingen Series, New York, Pantheon Books, 1956.

Kenneth Clark, a cultural elitist of a kind now perhaps either extinct or rendered silent by a less deferential culture, opened The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956) by noting naked implied something embarrassing yet nude “… carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone”.  Clark’s view was there were works of art in which there were nudes but other depictions were just variations of nakedness for whatever purpose.  The nude, he concluded, "…is not the subject of art, but a form of art."  In other word, the models in men's magazines were photographed in a state of nakedness while the women rendered in fine art were part of the tradition of the nude.  Photographers who thought their work artistic didn't agree and the onset of cultural relativism means such debates no longer happen.  However, the adoption by some that nude was something to used exclusively about works of art dates only from the eighteenth century, a movement led by critics and the commercial art industry which wanted the English market again to start buying the many nudes available for sale but which, even before the Victorian era, had fallen from fashion.

New York Magazine, February 2008 (Spring Fashion Issue).

Bert Stern’s (1929-2013) nude photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) was commissioned by Vogue magazine and shot over three days, some six weeks before her death.  In book form, the images captured were compiled and published as The Last Sitting (first edition, William Morrow and Company (1982) ISBN 0-688-01173-X).  Stern reprised his work in 2008 with Lindsay Lohan, the photographs published in February 2008’s spring fashion issue of New York magazine.  Stern chose the medium of forty-six years earlier, committing the images to celluloid rather than using anything digital.  The reprised sessions visually echoed the original with a languorous air though the diaphanous fabrics were draped sometimes less artfully than all those years ago.  He later expressed ambivalence about the shoot, hinting regret at having imitated his own work but the photographs remain an exemplar of Lohanary.

2008 naked Ducati 1098 Streetfighter.

The theory of the naked motorcycle is a machine reduced to its essence of a frame, wheels and an engine, thereby making it lighter than more exotically configured models which may include flashings, windshields, saddlebags or fairings.  Simple physics mean a machine with less mass accelerates, turns and stops with less demand of energy and at low speed they tend to be easier to manoeuvre, are lighter to hold up when static and certainly easier to mount on a centre-stand.  There's also the attraction there are fewer things to break, fibreglass fairings being notorious for getting cracked, scratched or broken and Perspex screens are, with age, prone to cloudiness.  The look however is why some buy naked bikes, the intricacies of the exposed mechanicals appealing especially to engineers anxious to display the quality of the frame's welding or the indefinable but real attraction of Allen-headed bolts.  They're also quick.  Although sacrificing the aerodynamic advantages gained by fairings means in some cases the naked machines can have lower top speeds, they tend to accelerate with more alacrity, offer instant responsiveness and, in street use, top speeds are now anyway rarely approached.

Lindsay Lohan, Playboy magazine, January/February 2012.

Nudity & nakedness are defined by both context & circumstances.  The cover photograph for Lindsay Lohan's 2012 Playboy shoot was, in the narrow technical sense, ambiguous because the chair could have been concealing a pair of delicate lace knickers.  However, because of the nature of the publication, this is a nude shot (shoes don't count; everybody knows that).