It sounded like something that might happen to your car.Īnd then, finally, we got to Vietnam. It was now absolutely sterile: operational exhaustion. It took longer to say, so the impact was reduced, and the humanity was completely squeezed out of the term. It had been stretched out to eight syllables.
#George carlin youtube euphemisms how to#
By that time, Madison Avenue had learned well how to manipulate the language, and the same combat condition became operational exhaustion. More time passed and we got to Korea, 1950.
It takes a little longer to say, stretches it out. Then, during the Second World War, the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. In World War I it was called shell shock. It occurs when a soldier's nervous system has reached the breaking point. There's a condition in combat - most people know it by now. So, naturally, as time has passed, and we've grown fatter and more prosperous, the problem has gotten worse. I think it's one of the consequences of being fat and prosperous and too comfortable. And I've noticed Americans have a problem with reality they prefer to avoid the truth and not look it in the eye. management wanted to curtail redundancies in the human resources area, so many people are no longer viable members of the workforce.I mentioned earlier several reasons we seem to employ so much euphemistic language: the need to avoid unpleasant realities the need to make things sound more important than they really are marketing demands pretentiousness boosting employee self-esteem and, in some cases, just plain, old political correctness.īut no matter their purpose, the one thing euphemisms all have in common is that they soften the language. They're fucking broke! Cause a lot of them were fired. And they're broke! They're broke! They don't have a negative cash-flow position. Now the economically disadvantaged occupy substandard housing in the inner cities. Now they want me to go to a health maintenance organization.or a wellness center to consult a healthcare delivery professional. When I was a little kid, if I got sick they wanted me to go to the hospital and see a doctor.
And constipation became occasional irregularity. Used cars became previously owned transportation.
Sometime during my life, toilet paper became bathroom tissue. That language that takes the life out of life. One of the reasons is because we were using that soft language. But, it didn't happen, and one of the reasons. I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to it's absolute peak and maximum. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protest themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language.
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