Recently we discussed, in two separate posts, the use of euphemisms, or words used to make something sound better than it is.
Did you know that the euphemism has an opposite? It’s the dysphemism. A dysphemism is a word that is used to make something sound worse—or harsher or more crude—than it is.
I can’t confirm this anywhere, but I wonder if that is where the modern slang “dis” comes from, as in to insult someone. Does anyone know?
The examples I’ve come across in my research aren’t very polite; I suppose that’s why they are what they are. There are countless dysphemisms for using the restroom. My son used an ugly one recently, so ugly I must have put it out of my mind. I remember only that he used it in front of his grandfather.
About.com’s Grammar & Composition site has an interesting take. Here English professor Richard Nordquist points out that dysphemisms, also called cacophemisms, are used to refer to people often take from animal images. Someone is a pig or an old bat or a chicken. Most of their other examples have to do with death, dying and burial.
Do you have any interesting dysphemisms that can be shared in polite company?
Everything that was ever made in silver and brass. Beautiful antique furniture. Crystal and glass in red, blue and green. Hundreds and hundreds of lamps, atop bases of ceramic roosters, cherubs, fruits and vegetables. Hundreds of candlesticks, salt and pepper shakers and bookends, and the usual trays, bowls and vases but enough of them to fill an outlet store many times over. A two-story, three car garage was full of furniture. And right in the middle of everything, amongst the vast collection of artwork, in a three-foot by four-foot frame, a portrait of John Wayne with an American flag, painted on black velvet.
I tried to come up with a unique angle from which to write about it, but it’s all been done. The weird and tacky commemorative souvenirs. The event as perceived by the male species. How British police have deployed a special team of security forces for the “mentally unhinged and the royal-obsessed.” The repeated use of the word “commoner” to describe the bride. Even how much fun the name of her home town is to say: Bucklebury.
Marcus was aware of the uncertain nature of his condition—including the fact that his extensive head surgery might hamper his chances of serving in the military—but he kept looking ahead. Make-a-Wish and a local Air Force base invited him to be a pilot for a day and fly in an F-16 flight simulator. They gave him his own flight suit and his wings.
It wasn’t all solemn. We often played in the yard or at the park, visited the local pet store where they had baby bunnies available for petting, we visited the cheesy Easter Bunny at the mall and had a picture taken. Then we went to church in the evening, often counting daffodils and forsythia blossoms along the way.
Some 40 days have passed and we are now at the Holy Triduum—the three days preceding Easter, beginning today with Maundy Thursday, which commemorates, among other significant happenings, the Last Supper.
The one my father brought to my attention oh, so long ago: “It fell between the cracks.” Think about it. “Between the cracks.” To fall between the cracks, or slip between the cracks, has come to mean that something was lost—by slipping into a tiny space. Say you drop a small object on the floor. If it slips between the cracks, it’s not lost at all. Why? Because what’s between the cracks? The wood. Even though “between the cracks” is commonly accepted, what we mean to say—and should say—is “through the cracks.”
As I glance at my bookcase, I count more than a dozen books about the first years of life. Were those really needed, when what we focused on at that stage was putting food in one end and cleaning up at the other? The loving came naturally.
He has run four marathons in the last five months.
Word Nymph 