The silliest euphemisms

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JennaGlatzer

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I was just on State Farm insurance's automated phone line, and they were pitching me some kind of extra insurance. I wasn't really listening, until I heard...

"If you lose your job or experience loss of life..."

:roll:

Heard any doozies lately?
 

Word Jedi

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11 Years ago, soon after my mother passed away, I needed to renew my car insurance. I went to the office in person and the agent pitched me to buy more insurance, lower deductible, the whole nine yards. Then I mentioned something about my mother's passing.
Instead of him saying, "I'm sorry for your loss," or some other kind words, he said, "Wasn't it great to have insurance?"
 

Soccer Mom

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In Texas, there is no longer such a thing as "probation." It is now called "community supervision."
 

tehuti88

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I've seen some incredibly silly ones in erotica writing...but I shan't share them here for obvious reasons. :eek: Needless to say the goofy euphemisms combined with vulgar language are a big reason why I write a lot of erotica but don't read it--I'll be reading along and then up pops some sort of ridiculous word/phrase and there goes the mood!
 

Clair Dickson

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How about how companies no longer "fire" people. You're "downsized" or "terminated" or just "no longer with the company."

And personally, "previously owned car" instead of a used car bothers me. It always reminds me of ABC gum... now I have nothing against used cars. I love them. But let's call them what they are. They're used. Sometimes gently, sometimes not. But they've been used. Someone's probably spilled coffee and done the deed in it. That's why it costs less.

Maybe instead of saying that someone was used by someone else, we should say they were previously owned. ;-)
 

CaroGirl

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I'm sure things "pop up" in erotica frequently.

Euphemisms are best when the people who use them don't realize how stupid they sound. I work in business and technology and the euphemisms people dream up to describe perfectly ordinary things are laughable. You implement instead of use and leverage instead of take advantage of. There are lots more that I can't think of right now. These aren't even the best examples.

It's interesting that people who are blind and deaf don't seem to mind those terms nearly as much as people who are not "sight and hearing impaired."
 

blacbird

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And personally, "previously owned car" instead of a used car bothers me.

We have a dealership in my town who used to advertise "previously appreciated vehicles" (I don't know if they still do that, or not).

How about the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) report on a major plane crash a few years back, which concluded that the plane crashed because its flight "intersected with the ground"?

caw
 

dawinsor

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I'm probably the only person left who prefers "died" to "passed away" or, lord help me, just "passed." It's crotchety of me but I don't care. "Died" is a stronger word.
 

FennelGiraffe

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I'm probably the only person left who prefers "died" to "passed away" or, lord help me, just "passed." It's crotchety of me but I don't care. "Died" is a stronger word.

No, you aren't.

The idiot woman who told me about my brother's death (I was away at school) was so "tactful" I was left uncertain whether my father called to say my brother died, or my brother called to say my father died. I've hated anything other than very simple, direct language ever since.
 

JennaGlatzer

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I agree! I much prefer "died" to "passed away," "lost," etc. Changing the word doesn't make the thing any easier. It's not like if someone says, "I'm sorry your grandma passed away" it's going to make me feel any better.

Blacbird, I think you win. Those are good.
 

maxmordon

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Please, a little sensitivity for our zombie friends: "Vitality challenged."

caw

Once I was playing with this with a friend, Vampires: Photosensitive Hematophagus, Zombies: Necrobes.

Who can forget South Park's nazis: Person of alternative political viewpoint
 

blacbird

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This is a real one. I worked for a while at a major corporation where we used a lot of maps, and were always posting data points on them with little paper dots. We ran out one day, and I had to order new ones. Only they weren't dots. According to the package they came in, they were:

Die-cut pressure sensitive self-adhesive visual communication symbols.

caw
 
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Broadswordbabe

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I was once given a lunch on a plane which included something called an 'interdental stimulator'.

Or to the rest of us, a toothpick.
 

smcc360

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How about the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) report on a major plane crash a few years back, which concluded that the plane crashed because its flight "intersected with the ground"?

I got one of those which insisted that '...experienced unmanaged terrain contact resulting in total loss of airframe viability' was preferable to writing out 'crashed'.

At the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney, the ones which have always baffled me are the contractions of words which were pretty short to begin with. 'Merch' instead of 'merchandise', 'totes' instead of 'totally', 'hella' instead of 'helluva', etc. What do people do with all the time they save? It must add up to, like, seconds a year.
 
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Calla Lily

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I'm seeing this in the forms I type at work: prostitute is now "sex worker." Um... that makes it sound like you get health and dental insurance and the usual deductions taken out of your... paycheck?
 

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One of my wife's coworkers criticised her for referring to a blind person. She is not blind, she is "differently advantaged." A plumber once wrote to a government agency that he found sulphuric acid effective in clearing clogs. The reply he received was so full of bureaucratic jargon he couldn't understand it. He wrote for a clarification. they replied, "Don't use sulphuric acid, it eats hell out of the pipes."
 

Deccydiva

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The best one I saw was on the London Underground. A chalkboard had been placed by the ticket office, advising that there were delays due to a "suspected fatality"
Well was (s)he or wasn't (s)he? If (s)he'd been hit by a train I think it might be safe to assume the former...
 

Nivarion

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around here we have some bad ones.

a great deal of you have probably noticed that i write funny sometimes, that is because i am trying to keep them out of my writing. or i use them, it seems to flow right to me, but it is good texan.

we use "Im fixxen to" when we say we are going to do something. and the famous "Till the cows come home" to refer to a long time. and Yall. i still use yall some times. there are so many of them that i don't realize they are there.
 
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