Free The Word Snoop by Ursula Dubosarsky Page B

to listen very carefully sometimes, and
speak and write even more carefully.
    But don’t be afraid!
    If you fall down a hole into a terrible deep
darkness, I’ll pull you out.
    Right after I pull myself out, actually . . .
    Read on,

8.
    Hmm I wonder what you’re really Saying...

Euphemisms
    Dear Aunt Martha,
    Thank you for the remarkable sweater. It will be just the right size in three years time. And what an unusual color — I’m sure that nobody else will ever put it in their bag at school and take it home by accident.
    As always, I appreciate you thinking of me in such an unexpected way.
     
    Your nephew,
    Alfred
    I wonder, do you think Alfred really liked the present that Aunt Martha sent him? Have a good look at what he’s written. What can you discover about the sweater? That it’s too big, that it’s a color nobody else would like . . . Why doesn’t he just say so? Well, it can be hard to say that sort of thing directly. At times like this, we often use something called euphemisms.
    A euphemism is the name given to the ways we find to say things that people don’t really want to hear or that make them feel uncomfortable. The word euphemism comes from the ancient Greek words eu, meaning “good,” and pheme, meaning “something spoken.”
    One of the earliest euphemisms was the name the Greeks gave to some of their goddesses called the Furies. The Furies were not very pleasant—they had hair made of snakes and drove people to their deaths. (Urgh!) Understandably, they made the Greeks feel a bit nervous, so instead of calling them “the Furies,” they called them by the euphemism “the Kindly Ones”! Maybe they thought they might forget to be furious and become kind instead. (It was worth a try . . .)
    Most euphemisms are used for things people find embarrassing to say out loud. For example, in restaurants the toilets are often called restrooms —and let’s face it, you’re not going to lie down and have a little sleep in there, are you? (Are you?)
    Funnily enough, the word toilet itself was originally a euphemism. It’s from a French word toile, a piece of cloth you used to put around your neck while washing, or on your dressing table. It started to be used as a euphemism for the . . . you know, the . . . Anyway, now we think even the word toilet is not quite polite!
    Once you start listening or looking, you’ll find euphemisms everywhere. It might not be a particular expression, but a way of saying something indirectly, like Alfred’s letter. It’s pretty handy when you have to break some bad news. Like:
    “Hey, have you ever thought of getting
a pet mouse?”
     
    (Translation: Your guinea pig just escaped from
its cage and ran off down the street.)
     
    Or: “Luckily, you won’t have to leave room
for dessert tonight.”
     
    (Translation: I just finished all the chocolate
mousse and now there’s none left.)

Don’t Mention It
    Death, which nobody likes to think about, probably has the most euphemisms of any word. Some of them are: passed away, no longer with us, sleeping with the fishes, permanently out of print— on and on they go.

    The British comedy team Monty Python did a very funny sketch you may have seen about a man who brings a dead parrot back to the pet shop where he bought it. The man tries to tell the pet-shop owner that the parrot is dead, but the owner pretends not to get the message. The man uses every euphemism he can think of. He says the bird is:
    bereft of life
gone to meet his maker
fallen off the twig
pushing up daisies
passed on
kicked the bucket
joined the choir invisible, etc. etc.
    Finally he shouts out in exasperation: “This is an EX-PARROT !”
    Euphemisms for death are often used out of kindness, because the truth can be so painful. Read the scene on the next page from Charles Dickens’s wonderful novel David Copperfield. David is away at boarding school and is being told that his mother has died.
    “When you came away from home at the end of