April 18, 2001

Dysphemism

(Greek dus- 'bad' + phem- 'speak')

Euphemism: "making something sound better"

Dysphemism: "making something sound worse"

Like euphemisms, there are two kinds of dysphemisms:

• Conventional dysphemisms: words whose sole purpose is to make reference to a taboo topic in a "dispreferred" way: "shit" vs. "defecate", "prick" vs. "penis" etc. (Somewhat rarer than euphemisms, but nonetheless high frequency.)
• General dysphemisms: ways of describing a situation, event or thing which convey a negative attitude towards it: "terrorist" vs. "freedom fighter", "henchman" vs. "associate" etc.

Dysphemisms often arise through a process called pejorization: a word for a "bad" thing comes to be seen as a "bad" word. This process can be very rapid: witness the change in "PC-ness" in terms for ethnic groups.

• Indian - Native American
• Negro - Colored (person) - Black - African-American
• Jew - Jewish person

In each case a formerly neutral term becomes dysphemistic and has to be replaced.

Cross-register synonymy

Register: a style or way of speaking adopted by a group. Registers can be defined in terms of formality ("formal" or "polite" vs. "informal" or "intimate" language); profession (linguists, academics, mountain climbers); channel (CB radio talk, chatspeak); or anything else that brings people into a community.

The definitions of "euphemism" and "dysphemism" presuppose that there are three words for a thing in different registers: a polite word, a neutral word, and an impolite word. Arguably this accounts for sets like:

Two problems:

1. these sets of terms aren't quite synonymous: especially, some say more or less than their counterparts
2. how a word or expression is evaluated may depend on the setting: for instance, "menstruate" is neutral in an academic context but euphemistic in a casual context.