Euphemisms

The ultimate in shabby chic

I am collecting euphemisms and dysphemisms into an ebook to be called Boo and Hooray! But I have removed quite a few quotes due to copyright concerns. Here's a few for starters:

“As Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee put it: ‘No story is fair if reporters hide their biases and emotions behind such subtly pejorative words as refused, despite, admit and massive’.” (Guardian style guide)

“So what do we think of terms like upcycle, vintique, shabby chic etc? Was it better when we just had antique, second-hand, painted etc?” (antique dealer George Johnson/‏@LadyKentmores)
 
“Language betrays values.” (Carlo Caponecchia)

"Now the housing crisis. I am not meant to say crisis now I work for the minister but hell's teeth a crisis is a crisis." (Emily Wright on Twitter)

CONFIDENCE
Confidence is like character and personality, it’s code for having remade yourself to society’s requirements. (Lorraine Pascale on ITV)

“They learn to talk in a polite way to someone senior and that gives them confidence.” They learn to bullshit? “Yeah. That’s the art of confidence.” (The Times, March 19 2008)

“Employers put social skills ahead of degrees. Employers are increasingly spurning degrees when hiring staff, a study has found. Instead, they are looking for candidates to be ‘well turned out’, ‘ well-spoken’ and [have] ‘good manners’.” (The Daily Mail, January 17, 2004)

DIPLOMACY
A friend writes:

I couldn't agree with you more: There may be something in what
you say.

There may be something in what you say: There is no way I could agree with that.

How very interesting!: Now you are talking complete bullshit.

MENTAL HEALTH
“19th century doctor Bernhard von Gudden [realised] that so-called ‘moral treatment’, which often involved inflicting violence on mental health patients, wasn't perhaps the best curative regimen.” (Der Spiegel, January 2014)

Normal minds are as rare as normal eyesight. (Muriel Jaeger, Before Victoria If “normal eyesight” is rare, then it isn’t normal.)


"Attacked viciously by atheists" = Received a lot of tweets (Donovan/‏@MrOzAtheist)

“By ‘moral relativism’ [the Catholic Church means] "not unquestioningly accepting our primacy in moral affairs." (JP)

“Why are Christians being so oppressed?” = “Why aren’t we getting everything our way like the good old days?” Robin Ince, blog, Jan 15 2014

ARGUMENTS“I've learned from years of having ideas & opinions that when someone says 'everyone has an opinion' they usually want to stop hearing yours.” (@MarkOneinFour)

"Let's not bring politics into this" always seems to mean "Let's all agree with what I say." (Andy Shaw/@RedAndy54)

“People who say they like to see orthodoxies challenged mean they like to see other peoples' orthodoxies challenged and their own confirmed.” (Frankie Boyle)

“This new thing of calling anyone who opposes you or sticks up for themselves 'aggressive'.” (@ShappiKhorsandi)

"God works in Mysterious ways = I'm making this up as I go along, please stop asking difficult questions." (Donovan/@MrOzAtheist)

“Closed-minded skeptics are merely debunkers.” (via Chris French. Means “they disagree with us”.)

More here.