Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

Sweet talking and offensive language 49
I had my last period two weeks ago than ?I had my last menstruation two
weeks ago. Note also that there is an adjective menstrual which has no
felicitous counterpart derived from period: period has adnominal function
in period pain, which is matched by menstrual discomfort. These different
characteristics are consistent with the greater formality of the orthophemism
menstruation.
Alternative proper names are sometimes motivated for reasons similar to
euphemism. Political change caused St Petersburg to be renamed Leningrad in
1924 and then return to its earlier name in 1991. The Gold Coast was renamed
Ghana on independence in 1957. The name Papago was regarded as an
outsider’s term of abuse for Native Americans, who now call themselves the
Tohono O’odham. Americans use John Doe and Jane Doe in courts to protect
identity, where other jurisdictions use Mr X, Ms Y, etc. These practices are
completely euphemistic. If one regards the base name as orthophemistic, then
nicknames tend to be euphemistic when expressing solidarity and dysphemistic
when disrespectful. Mary Ann Evans presumably thought she had a better
chance of being taken seriously as a novelist if she adopted the male pseudonym
George Eliot. Presumably, career advancement explains swapping Declan
McManus for Elvis Costello, Reginald Dwight for Elton John, Bernard
Schwartz for Tony Curtis and Frances Gumm for Judy Garland. On the other
hand, presumably Caryn Johnson became Whoopi Goldberg for reasons similar
to Vincent Furnier becoming Alice Cooper and John Ritchie becoming Sid
Vicious – shock value, with a motive closer to dysphemism than euphemism.
Because cross-varietal synonyms have the same denotation, the denial of
the denotatum of any one of a set of synonyms denies it for all of them (if Max
didn’t urinate in the swimming pool then Max didn’t piss in the swimming
pool and Max didn’t make a number 1 in the swimming pool and Max didn’t
relieve himself in the swimming pool). However, it is quite possible to deny
the applicability of one term while asserting what amounts to a preference for
the appropriate connotations of its cross-varietal synonym, as in He’s not a
lodger, he’s a paying guest or They’re not boobs, they’re bosoms, orIt wasn’t
Norma Jean Baker who starred in ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ – well, she
sort of did but under the name of Marilyn Monroe, orHe’s not a liar, he’s
just careless with the truth. The difference in variety may correspond to a
difference in jargon, and some people sometimes find the use of jargon
dysphemistic and think it should be censored.
Alternative points of view
Often a euphemism is linked with the speaker’s point of view, dysphemism
with some other view – it is an us versus them situation. For instance, consider
the import of the parenthetical remark in the following: