internet-euphemania

By Suzi Steffen · September 22, 2011 Euphemania: Our Love Affair With Euphemisms by Ralph Keyes “I prefer not to say we are killing other people,” an American artillery captain said during the Gulf War. ‘I prefer to say we are ‘servicing the target.’” Ah yes, servicing the target. Once you’ve read Ralph Keyes’—at first …

Reviewed: Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms, by Ralph Keyes. New York. Little, Brown and Company, 2010. As Ralph Keyes notes in his book Euphemania, “Euphemisms can have a bright side and a dark side.” They can be a source of evasion, a way to avoid topics that should be confronted, a way of choosing …

Euphemania: Our Love Affair With Euphemisms June 16th, 2011 Ralph Keyes’ Euphemania: Our Love Affair With Euphemisms (Little, Brown and Co., 2010) will delight anyone who loves words, their origins and the way that they reflect cultural intentions, subterfuges and biases. Keyes defines euphemisms as words or phrases substituted for ones that make us uneasy: …

Back in January, I saw Ralph Keyes’s Euphemania: Our Love Affair With Euphemisms come through on the Washington County Libraries New Materials RSS feed, and I just knew i had to read it.  It met my very tough and extremely arbitrary criteria of “having to do with science, math, history, or language or practically anything …

I’m a word nerd, but I don’t often read books about language. I’m not sure if this is because I get enough of grammar at work, or because as a hopeless smartypants I prefer to feel like I know it all already, or because I’m afraid that once I get started I won’t be able …

Ralph Keyes’ books include The Courage to Write and I Love It When You Talk Retro. He has written for Esquire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, GQ, Newsweek, and Harper’s. His new book is Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms. Keyes lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he writes, lectures, and is a Trustee of the Antioch Writers’ …