Euphemism and metaphor

[David Birch]

Zouhair Maalej's epigraph highlighting four kinds of people - all men - is
missing a fifth man - a man who is sexist and ignores women completely  by
trying to map onto the modern world a totally outmoded and irrelevant
ancient sexist Arabic view. David (Birch)

.>Dear Dina,
>The word euphemism comes from Greek _eu_ (good) and _pheme_ (speech or
>saying). Euphemising has come to mean substituting a pleasant, inoffesive,
>indirect term for an offensive, distasteful, and more explicit term.
>Linguistic communication being governed by the Politeness Principle (Leech,
>1983), euphemising and metaphorising meet owing to indirectness to mediate
>between the taboo and the tasteful. For instance, in the news exterminating
>a race by massive killing may be euphemistically termed as cleansing (as in
>what has been going on in Kosovo). Note that here metaphorically killing
>becomes cleansing.
>
>For a short introduction to euphemism, see _A Dictionary of Stylistics_
>(Katie Wales, 1989). For a more thorough study of euphemism, see _The
>Wordsworth Book of Euphemism_ (Judith S. Neaman & Carole G. Silver, 1990).
>
>Zouhair Maalej, Assistant Professor,
>Department of English Chair,
>Faculty of Letters, Manouba, 2010,
>University of Tunis I, TUNISIA.
>Office Phone: (+216) 1 600 700 Ext. 174
>Home Tel/Fax: (+216) 1 362 871
>Email: zmaalej at gnet.tn
>
>There are four kinds of people: a man who knows and knows that he does; such
>a man is a man of knowledge, so follow his steps. A man who knows but
>doesn't know that he does; such a man is unmindful, so wake him up.  A man
>who doesn't know but knows that he doesn't; such a man is ignorant, so
>educate him. And a man who doesn't know and doesn't know that he doesn't;
>such a man is definitely a fool, so avoid his company. (Ancient Arabic
>saying)
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dina Koschorreck <kath2 at ZEDAT.FU-BERLIN.DE>
>To: DISCOURS at linguist.ldc.upenn.edu <DISCOURS at linguist.ldc.upenn.edu>
>Date: Friday, June 25, 1999 11:46 AM
>
>
>>Hello!
>>
>>Could anyone be so kind and explain to me how 'metaphor' and 'euphemism'
>>are related?  In which way are they similar and in which ways do they
>>differ? Is euphemism a kind of metaphor? Is euphemism part of pragmatics
>>and metaphor not? Somehow I could not find any literature which gave a
>>satisfactory answer (most don#t touch on this at all). Thank you very much
>>for your help!
>>Dina
>>kath2 at zedat.fu-berlin.de
>>