"euphemism" = metaphor or figure of speech
Peter A. McGraw
pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU
Wed Mar 23 00:44:04 UTC 2005
This just points up the urgent need for Congress to pass a law establishing
a speed limit on semantic evolution. It shouldn't be allowed to occur at a
speed any faster than I can keep up with! :)
Peter Mc.
--On Tuesday, March 22, 2005 1:01 PM -0800 Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
> Wiley Miller's syndicated panel cartoon "Non Sequitur" of March 3, 2005
> depicts a Dilbert-like office worker blowing a huge police whistle and
> inducing an apparent heart attack in a older coworker. A third employee
> observes,
>
> "How many times do I have to tell you, Ralph ? Whistle-blower is
> just a euphemism...."
>
> In my day, soon after the invention of humor, we concluded similar jokes
> with the phrase "just a figure of speech." The framing talk balloon is
> quite big enough to contain the longer phrase.
>
> The use of "euphemism" to mean "synonym" has already been commented on,
> IIRC.
>
> Cf. "allegory," currently used almost exclusively to mean "metaphor" on
> live TV.
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************
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