by Ralph Keyes
We will see illustrations of that fact throughout this book. Lavatories, for example, inspire all sorts of elliptical expressions. Among the more imaginative of innumerable euphemisms for this room is where the Queen goes on foot. One of the great all-time rejoinders came from the pen of German composer Max Reger a century ago. In response to a critical review of one of his compositions, Reger wrote, “I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.” Would this riposte have been as devastating (or amusing) if Reger had written, “I’m sitting on the commode and am about to wipe my behind with your review”? I don’t think so.
Event-Based Euphemisms
After an orator in ancient Rome said it was the duty of a freed slave to have sex with her former owner, duty became euphemistic for “sex” among young Romans. “You aren’t doing your duty by me,” they would say, and “He gets a lot of duty.”
Duty was an event-based euphemism. In this common form of the genre, well-known episodes provide the basis for euphemistic allusions. In some parts of China, homosexuality was once called the passion of the cut sleeve. This referred to an ancient tale about an emperor who cut his sleeve so he could take leave of his male lover, who lay asleep on that sleeve, without disturbing him.
Such euphemisms have meaning only to those familiar with their context. During the 1970s, for example, discussing Uganda became a way of describing sexual activity among swinging Londoners. This alluded to a story popular at the time that involved a young couple who made love in an upstairs bedroom during a party in someone else’s flat. When asked later what they’d been doing, the young woman said, “Discussing the situation in Uganda.” For a time thereafter, “Would you care to discuss Uganda?” was the hip Londoner’s sexual come-on.
Event-based euphemisms typically enjoy the life expectancy of a fruit fly. Most die out with the memory of those around at their inception, if not sooner. Only old-timers know why a fart was once known as a one-o’clock in Australia (because before World War II, a cannon was fired at that time of day from Fort Denison in Sydney’s harbor, a practice that did not resume for nearly half a century). And who today would refer to bedbugs as Norfolk-Howards? At one time, some Britons did just that. Because “bug” was considered a vulgar word in Victorian England (as opposed to “insect”), an unfortunate Londoner named Joshua Bug wearied of the opportunities his last name presented for laughter. In 1861, Bug changed his surname to Norfolk-Howard. After this face-saving gambit was announced in the Times of London, he found that his new name had become a euphemism for the old one. (“That mattress was full of Norfolk-Howards.”)
More than a century later, when in England as a Rhodes scholar, Bill Clinton had a go at smoking marijuana. While campaigning for the presidency two decades later, Clinton admitted this but said he “didn’t inhale.” That became an overnight euphemism for getting high on marijuana. (“I used to inhale when I was in college.”)
This euphemism survived somewhat longer than most that are event based do and can still be heard on occasion. “The point was to inhale,” Barack Obama has said of his own youthful marijuana use. Another event-based euphemism that could prove durable is wardrobe malfunction. After Justin Timberlake explained that this was why Janet Jackson’s nipple was exposed when he tugged at her bodice during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, wardrobe malfunction quickly became euphemistic for exposing parts of one’s body (especially when singer Britney Spears began doing this on a regular basis). When actress Emma Watson inadvertently displayed some underwear in public, she denied that this was a Britneyesque flash, calling it more of a “wardrobe malfunction.”
A few years after Janet Jackson’s flash, Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) pled guilty to soliciting sex from an undercover police officer in the adjacent stall of an airport men’s room by tapping his toe beneath the stall divider. Toe tapping then became a euphemism for gay solicitation. When Craig explained that his foot appeared beneath the next stall’s divider because he had a “wide stance” while seated on a toilet, wide stance became a euphemism for closeted gay behavior. Two years later, after North Carolina governor Mark Sanford said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was actually canoodling with his mistress in Argentina, hiking the Appalachian Trail enjoyed a vogue as a euphemism for “having an affair.” (“I think Jason and Amy are hiking the Appalachian Trail.”)
To keep track of such euphemisms, one must be au courant newswise. It also helps to be up on contemporary pop-culture references, ones in which Steely Dan can refer to either the rock band by that name or an erect penis. An even more esoteric modern euphemism in this area is sunglasses, referencing an often-erect sunglass-wearing rock guitarist. (“OMG! Sunglass alert!”)
Obviously, euphemisms cover a lot of ground and serve many masters. How did they become such a central part of our discourse? To answer that question, we must go back to the earliest known euphemisms, ones created in the caves, forests, and savannas where our ancestors found some things so frightening that they could only speak about them indirectly.
2
From Bears to Bowdlerism
BEARS ARE SCARY ANIMALS. They are so scary that early northern Europeans referred to them by substitute names for fear that uttering their real name might beckon these ferocious beasts. Instead, they talked of the honey eater, the licker, or the grandfather. The word “bear” itself evolved from a euphemistic term that meant “the brown one.” It is the oldest known euphemism, first recorded a thousand years ago. Because the word that “bear” replaced was never recorded, it remains a mystery.
Animals figure prominently in the history of euphemizing. It was quite common throughout the world to give feared animals euphemistic names. This was something that late-nineteenth-century anthropologists often noted. Because members of the Wajagga tribe near Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa believed that nearby predators had been sent by the dead to attack them, they only talked of such animals elliptically. Lions were the lords from the underworld; elephants, the chieftains. Alternatively, in hopes of driving elephants away with ridicule, they would call them woman’s bag since this huge animal’s hide was wrinkled and cracked like market bags used by women. Some Malays called elephants the tall ones, tigers the striped ones, crocodiles the gap-toothed thingammy-bobs. The Oraons of India’s Chota Nagpur region warily referred to tigers as long-tailed things and to snakes as ropes.
Words originally were not considered distinct from what they named. Those who believed this thought that referring to something by name risked summoning that entity. To say “husband” or “wife” presented no problem (for the most part). Saying “tiger,” on the other hand, or “Zeus,” was another matter. Who wanted to beckon them? This ancient fear is echoed whenever we say, “Speak of the devil, and he’ll appear.”
Because early humans thought words had the power to alert whatever they named, including predators, enemies, and evil spirits, not using the actual words for such ominous entities seemed prudent. Substitute words provided a safe vehicle for talking about frightening, taboo, or sacred topics. Like modern euphemisms, they were a way to fend off things that gave our ancestors pause by not referring to them directly. When embarking on a long sea voyage, members of the Alfoor tribe near Papua New Guinea thought it wise to fool eavesdropping spirits about their intentions by using substitute words. In place of “straight ahead,” they’d say bird’s beak. Instead of “starboard” (to the right), sword. Rather than “larboard” (to the left), shield.
A capacity to speak indirectly in this way undoubtedly quickly followed our ability to create and use words. The better our ability to express ourselves, the more need we felt to avoid being direct when doing so might court danger, cause anxiety, or give offense. Hence euphemisms. Euphemisms are a key indicator of increasing complexity of speech. Saying what we mean takes a high order of intelligence. It takes an even higher order to not say what we mean, while still conveying our thought.
Euphemisms
gestate best in the loam of our most primitive emotions: terror, lust, and revulsion. Imagine early men and women trying to come up with a way to discuss, say, shit. Like us, they most likely had an actual word for feces, but one they found unpleasant to use in everyday conversation because of the image it evoked, to say nothing of the smell. Presumably, therefore, they created a new word, one that didn’t portray the topic quite so directly: brown stuff, say, or mushrooms. (“I almost stepped on some mushrooms over there.”) A couple about to copulate might ask, “Shall we go behind that tree and relax?” An interloper who caught them in the act might later report that he’d seen this man and woman relaxing.
The need for euphemisms to talk not only about bears and evil spirits but also about each other must have become apparent early in human history. Without oblique language, how could we gossip? Then as now, each group developed its own euphemisms for touchy topics such as sex. The Trobriand islanders whom Bronislaw Malinowski studied early last century used the phrase sit at euphemistically for “copulate.” “They sit at the garden way” was their way of saying, “They copulate in or near the garden.” Members of the Mehinaku tribe of central Brazil call surreptitiously soliciting extramarital sex alligatoring. That’s because in their tribal mythology, alligators are both highly sexual and unusually canny. Mehinakuans who want to have a dalliance retire to a discreet jungle clearing known as the alligator place. “Shall we visit the alligator place?” might sound innocent to an outsider but not to the Mehinaku. To them, this is a question fraught with significance.
Mollifying Spirits
Unlike Christians’ belief in God’s essential goodness, our early ancestors believed that the deities they worshiped were not always benevolent. Many were closer in spirit to the evil wizard in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, Lord Voldemort, who is generally referred to as “He Who Must Not Be Named” or “You Know Who.” As with Voldemort, our ancestors thought that referring to deities by name might provoke their terrible wrath. If such dangerous spirits did not overhear themselves being discussed, they might leave us alone. Or so it was thought.
In time, this belief was integrated into theology. Recall the relationship of our word “euphemism” with the Greek eupheme and related words. In ancient Greece, euphemizein meant “speak with fair words” and often referred to terms used in place of ones considered sacred. Its opposite was blasphemein, the root of “blaspheme,” meaning “to speak lightly or amiss of sacred things.” Many early euphemisms were a means to avoid being blasphemous.
Among the ancients, this wasn’t just a matter of piety. Greek and Roman deities were not always nice. Many were rather cranky, a bit testy, easily provoked. Hoping to curry favor with such mercurial gods, some Greeks called them the Kindly Ones or the Gracious Ones. In a similar spirit, the Irish later tried to appease nasty fairies by referring to them as good folk.
Not using the actual names of spiritual figures was considered a shrewd strategy for keeping those figures from knowing that they were on your mind. It also suggested reverence and awe. This tradition persisted into the Judeo-Christian era. It lives on in the frequent use of Christian terms such as the Almighty, our Creator, or Heavenly Father, instead of making direct reference to God, and in the Jewish tradition of recording his name as G-d or Yahweh.
Until quite recently, those who wished to wreak maximum verbal havoc uttered blasphemous expletives. Even under the most dire provocations—a stubbed toe, say, or a thumb banged with a hammer—our pious ancestors would not have dared take the Lord’s name in vain by calling out “Oh, God!” “goddamn!” or even “damn!” In Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta H.M.S. Pinafore, Captain Corcoran expresses a common attitude toward the last word in centuries past:
Though ‘Bother it’ I may
Occasionally say,
I never use a big, big D
Today, we marvel that such a word excited sufficient horror to call for euphemizing, but it did. Consider tinkers and their damns or dams. These itinerant utensil repairers were not known for having civil tongues. In fact, their constant swearing was so notorious that “not worth a tinker’s damn” became a common catchphrase. This saying posed problems for tender ears, however, so an alternative etymology emerged, explaining that “dam” referred to the mound of dough that tinkers built around a flawed utensil segment that they then flooded with solder. Since this dam could be used only once, something of no lasting value might be described as not worth a tinker’s dam.
In more reverent times, the penalty for using blasphemous words was far greater than a mouth washed out with soap. Christians particularly dreaded the prospect of an eternity spent with flames burning their ankles and the devil’s trident poking their behinds. To those who avoided using a term such as “hell,” the fiery depths were very real. Summoning the devil by calling out his name (“The devil!”) or that of his headquarters (“Hell!”) was serious business. Today “Go to hell!” is among the mildest of epithets. But at a time when the prospect of being consigned to an afterlife of eternal agony was so vivid and feared, it was a dire curse.
As a result, the market was robust for substitute expressions to avoid blasphemous ones. Early on, “God” was euphemized to gog, gosse, gom, and gad, to name just a few. “Lord” could be law, lawks, lawzy, lawdy, land, or losh. More obvious euphemisms such as gosh darn and heck and Jimminy Christmas were supplemented by others, such as zounds (for “God’s wounds”) and gadzooks (for “God’s hooks”). At the other end of the religious spectrum, deuce and dickens stood in for “devil,” and an uncomfortable place or that other place for “hell.”
Nearly a century ago, a University of California linguist collected hundreds of euphemistic American exclamations. Some showed remarkable ingenuity. “Jesus Christ” became Jeans Rice, grease us twice, cheese and rice, and various other dairy-based euphemisms, such as sweet cheesecake or cheese and crackers. Gee itself was a shortening of the name of God’s Son. “Christ” alone inspired cripes and crikey. “Damn” gave way to darn, dang, ding-bust (“I’ll be ding-busted”), jim jam (“I’ll be jim-jammed”), and jim swiggle (“I’ll be jim-swiggled”). “Hell” became Helen, Halifax, and hen. Or, as Canadians call the devil’s abode, h-e-double-hockey-sticks.
Innocuous expressions such as “Dear me!” and “Good gracious!” had the added benefit of giving users a moment to regroup. Saying something like “Holy mackerel!” or “Criminy!” gave speakers a split second to pivot from blasphemy to acceptability. Medieval Englishmen who started to say “By God!” could shift quickly to “By Jove!”; antebellum Americans to “By gum!” Best of all was “By Godfrey!” Even “I swear!” was routinely replaced by “I swan!” after the mid-eighteenth century. Those who were tempted to say “Good God!” could think twice and say “Good gravy!” Charlie Brown—a creation of devout Christian Charles Schulz—would never say “Good God!” He would say “Good grief!” however, and did—often.
Piety and Profanity
Since our pious ancestors were so restrained when it came to swearing, it’s easy to conclude that they were verbally restrained in general. Nothing could be further from the truth. From ancient times on, lewd talk has been at least as common as it is today.
Terms such as “shit,” “arse,” and “teat” are among the oldest English words in continual use. Chaucer’s work was filled with expletives. In The Reeve’s Tale, Aleyn uses a verb for copulating common at that time when he says, “I have thries [thrice] in this shorte night / Swived the millers doghter bolt upright.” In The Miller’s Tale, Nicholas takes a direct approach to courting Allison: “And prively he caughte hire by the queinte.” (The Middle English term queinte was later shortened to “cunt.”) A few centuries later, playwright Ben Jonson freely used phrases such as “Shit o’ your head” and “Turd t’ your teeth.” A widow in the 1618 play Amends for Ladies by Nathaniel Field exclaims, “O man, what art thou when thy cock is up!”
One reason that William Shakespeare is such a pivotal figure in literary
history was his ability to combine earthy speech with sly metaphor. “Pistol’s cock is up,” he wrote in Henry V, “And flashing fire will follow.” Shakespeare routinely couched bawdy episodes in elliptical terms for the sheer delight of entertaining audiences with his naughty wordplay. Shakespearean scholar Pauline Kiernan has tallied more than 180 synonyms for female genitals in the Bard’s plays, 200 for the male version, and 700 verbal variations on sex play. “Even ardent Shakespeare fans,” writes Kiernan in Filthy Shakespeare, “experience bum-numbing moments during long and apparently tedious exchanges of verbal banter that make little sense to us because we don’t realize that the harmless-sounding words are actually exuberant displays of sparkling coded sexual dialogue.” The results are classic examples of the mingling of code words, slang, and euphemism. When Angelo in Measure for Measure calls his lustful longing for a young nun “a strong and swelling evil,” “swelling” refers both to his growing feeling and his rising penis. Hamlet refers to the “country matters” that can be found between “maids’ legs.” When an elderly shepherd comes upon an abandoned baby in The Winter’s Tale, the old man surmises that it is the result of “some stair-work, some trunk work, some behind-door-work.” Kiernan translates this speculation about the baby’s origins into modern vernacular: “a shag behind the back stairs, a furtive fuck inside a trunk or a screw up against a wall.”
It’s difficult for us to comprehend how many words and expressions we think of as profane were commonly used in Shakespeare’s time. This is partly because such terms weren’t as taboo back then, partly because common folk in particular weren’t all that concerned about proper speech. To them, bad words were ones that offended the Lord, not earthy terms for body parts or body wastes or matters sexual. Before a growing middle class clamped down on speech considered coarse, the King James Version of the Bible (1611) freely incorporated such terms as “piss,” “teat,” “give suck,” and “whorish.” Even among devoutly Christian American colonists, talk we might consider lewd did not seem so to them. Puritans in Massachusetts wrote so candidly about sexual activity in their ranks that heavy censorship was required before such writing could be published in modern editions. At the end of the seventeenth century, an English travel writer observed of New Englanders, “notwithstanding their Sanctity they are very Prophane in their common Dialect.” A few decades later, an English clergyman wrote from Maryland that visitors like himself were not exempted from the “obscene Conceits and broad Expressions” of its residents. Yet this colony had a statute that provided for boring a hole through the tongue of first-time blasphemers, branding a B on the forehead of second offenders, and executing anyone who dared blaspheme a third time.