avoidance

[Victor Steinbok]

A new form of oddball taboo avoidance from Erick Erickson, a
conservative blogger turned CNN commentator.

http://goo.gl/I62gj
> While the room temperature IQs at MSNBC spent Friday celebrating Joe
> “Rain Man” Biden’s illusory victory in Thursday’s debate, the White
> House spent the day trying to un-four-letter-Anglo-Saxon-word Biden’s
> performance.

Neither part of the replacement is actually that uncommon--in fact,
there is likely a class of people who use the whole expression with some
regularity. The question that bugs me is why bother with the euphemism
and you don't want to use the antecedent taboo word? Why not just choose
a different word if you audience is particularly prudish? Why play coy
at all?

VS-)

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