A Dictionary of Cont..

eternal; everlasting; endless; incessant; perpetual.
In its religious and other dignified uses, eternal
means lasting forever, implying not only that
that which is spoken of will last for ever but has
lasted from eternity up to the time of speaking
(The eternal hills that silent wait . . . ). In less
dignified contexts it means constantly recurring
to the point of being wearisome (The eternal
racket those kids make is driving me crazy).
Endless never stops, but goes on continually
as if in a circle (My . . . time-bewasted light/
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night).
Indeed, as in an endless belt, the word is applied
today to a number of devices that move in a
circle. It, too, is used in the sense of ceaselessly
recurring (Endless snowstorms prolonged the
winter into April) and, more often than eternal,
in a pejorative sense (His endless stories bored
everyone in the house).
Except in some religious contexts (from everlasting
to everlasting), everlasting connotes endurance
through all future time from this time
forward. It, too, has the dichotomy of expressing
awe or rapture in metaphysical contemplations
and irritation in mundane (That everlasting
complaining of his!). Apparently a very little
everlastingness in actual matters is hard to take.
Incessant means continuing without interruption
(Incessant application to his studies finally
brought the longed-for reward), and though it
can be applied to pleasant things (incessant delights)
it is so much more frequently applied to
unpleasant things that it also has, except where
the context makes it otherwise plain, a suggestion
of irritation.
Perpetual implies a continued renewing (The
graves will receive perpetuul care. The perpetual
stream of visitors consumed his strength).
eternal triangle. In the hackneyed phrase the eternal
triangle, used to describe lovers or married
couples with an intrusive third party, either man
or woman, who stirs up jealousy and discontent,
the word eternal is used in the sense of incessant
or recurring. The situation is scarcely more unendurable
than the phrase.
eternal verities. As a term for the unchanging
truths that presumably lie at the basis of the
moral order, the eternal verities is a cliche.
ethics and the singular form ethic are both used
in speaking about a theoretical system of morals,
and in this sense both words take a singular
verb, as in his ethics is unique. In speaking of
an actual system of morals that a man lives by,
only the form ethics is used and only with a
plural verb, as in his ethics are peculiar. The
adjective form is always ethical, and not ethic.
ethics; morals. Ethics and morals were once completely
synonymous, one being Greek and the
other Latin, but in common usage they have
come to have distinctions. Fowler trenchantly
summarizes the matter by saying that ethics is
the science of morals, and morals are the practice
of ethics. He believes that the impression
that ethics is less definitely connected with religion
than morals are is “unfounded,” and so it
may be in philosophy but in the common usage
of words it is pretty well established. And more
161 euphemism
and more, in the United States at least, morals
have a sexual connotation. Thus if it were said
of one that he was a man of the highest ethics,
the implication would be that he was strictly
honorable in regard to the truth and to financial
matters; but if it were said that he was a man
of the highest morals, the implication would be
that he was not guilty of sexual laxity and would
not condone it in others.
et seq. This is an abbreviation of the Latin words
et sequentes or et sequentia and means and the
following.
eulogy. See elegy.
euphemism means “speaking fair.” It is a term
to describe the substitution of a mild, indirect,
or vague expression for a harsh, direct, plain, or
terrifying one. The use of euphemisms (for the
term is applied to the words substituted as well
as to the process of substituting them) is widespread
in every language and is motivated by
reverence, kindness, decency, fear, and prudery.
The excretory and reproductive organs and
functions of the body are almost always spoken
of euphemistically in polite society. So is death.
And so are most incurable bodily and mental
ills. All of this was once regarded as “genteel”
or polite, but there has been a tendency in
the past two or three generations, particularly
marked among the educated, to speak more
plainly. The ribald associations of the Anglo-
Saxon words for urinating, defecating, fornicating,
and breaking wind will probably prevent
their becoming acceptable in everyday uses, but
in many other things related to the body the
plainness of modern talk would probably be
shocking to our grandmothers and grandfathers
(though not to our great-great grandmothers
and grandfathers; there are cycles and fashions
in these matters). Thus the word pregnant is
now acceptable to the politest ears and “in a
family way” would seem vulgarly genteel and
“with child” quaint.
In regard to death, the speech of the educated
today is more direct than that of the uneducated
and semi-educated, who still speak of passing on
for dying, refer invariably to the coffin as the
casket and the funeral as the service. The educated,
however, in their turn have fears from
which they wish to hide in words and have developed,
especially in relation to sicknesses,
some new euphemisms. Thus the fashionably
delicate word for a stroke nowadays is an accident
and the most elaborate circumlocutions are
often devised to avoid mentioning the dreaded
name of cancer.
The trouble with all euphemisms, of course,
is that the unpleasant fact is still there, for all
its pleasant name, and will in time infect the
euphemism. Thus cemetery, now frequently replaced
by memorial park, was originally a
eunhemism (it means “sleeping - . place”) for
graveyard, but the grinning face showed through.
So toilet, originally merely a dressing room
where one made one’s toilet, has become a semiindecent
word in the United States and bathroom,
especially when referred to with any urgency,
is becoming one. In England, by the way,