Euphemisms about People (in Quotes)

Be spontaneous!

“When the television people instruct you to be “lively,” “spontaneous,” “controversial” and full of “energy,” what they mean is that you should feel free to ridicule others, interrupt, toss off opinions from the top of your head, argue with cleverness rather than evidence, and display intolerance for any opinion but your own.” (Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour, Judith Martin)

“Sophisticated: person who can enjoy a film despite clunky FX. Unsophisticated: person who can't enjoy a film unless the FX are 'realistic'.” (writer and Dalek Barnaby Edwards)

Let's have lunch sometime!: I don't want to see you again. (alumni.media.mit.edu)

You would want to do X now: Do X.
You might want to consider doing X: I absolutely expect you to do X.
I'll have to think about it: I have thought about it, and the answer is ‘no’.
Are you sure you want to do that?: Are you really stupid enough to consider that?
Do you mind Xing?: Do X!
It's not that X, it's just that...: If it were acceptable, I would say X.
(alumni.media.mit.edu)

boring: “Men worry that having children will make them ‘boring’. This is code for ‘can’t go out and get drunk with other men’.” (The Guardian, Nov 09)

boundaries: It is up to parents to determine the way they want to help their children navigate boundaries and how they define right and wrong. (David Lammy, January 29, 2012).

condition: illness (“Professionals Can Suffer from Career-Related Conditions” @lifehackorg)

earnest: dull, worthy, probably cares about an unfashionable cause, or wants to stop us doing something harmless but enjoyable like smoking or making sexist jokes. It’s subtly pejorative. (“Earnest types who use the word “powerful” to describe music.” flavorwire.com “Earnest types sitting around pontificating about abstruse elements in books that no one reads.” joannehichens.co.za “The interminable bickering of painfully earnest students.” Popup London/@FoodPit)

ebullient: cruel (“Ebullient, indiscreet and cantankerous, he loved winding people up.” Times obituary, Sept 2011)

eccentric, erratic: crazy, creepy (“The man was clearly creepy – or, to use the British term, ‘eccentric’.” Hadley Freeman on Jimmy Savile, The Guardian, 8 November 2012)

emotional intelligence (formerly “maturity", or perhaps "Machiavellianism”): “The trick is to use your emotional intelligence to recognise how you are feeling and how it impacts your work persona.” (stylist.co.uk) Emotional intelligence is the ability to “motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations, to control impulse and delay gratification, to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think, to empathise and to hope,” as defined by Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, Why It Can Matter More than IQ. “A useful resource that helps develop networks, figure out hierarchy, and influence others.” (BPS Research Digest)

It amazes me how fast "you're so fun and carefree" changes to "you're an asshole that doesn't care about anything" (about 3 months). (@PuddingBoobs)

ladylike: [The Mama-San] suggested we foreign girls behave in a more ladylike manner, that is – to laugh more and talk back less. She herself laughed almost all the time, even when nothing funny happened. (Angela Carter on working as a hostess in Japan in the 80s)

outspoken: abusive, teller of painful truths, blunt (Word thesaurus says: “very frank or straightforward and showing no delicacy or consideration” – no tap dancing around the subject, no diplomacy, no deference, no “Up to a point, Lord Copper”.)

phoney: The phoney world of Twitter, the London chatterati and left-wing media. (Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, 2013 If it’s a phoney world it’s no threat. It’s like calling your opponents “so-called” or "faux socialist".)

positive: idealised (You could probably divide middle-class TV watchers into those who think TV should project an idealised, “positive” version of the world, and those who think it should reflect reality. middleclasshandbook.co.uk)

prosocial behaviour: kindness (Often [privatised medicine] fails to build up and reward pro-social behaviour (a psych word for ‘kindness’) in its staff, because paying them so little exhibits so little kindness towards them. Zoe Williams, The Guardian, March 21 2013)

sense of self (“famed for his extravagant lifestyle and robust sense of self”): probably a taker rather than a giver

sinful: mildly self-indulgent (“11 Sinfully Easy Crock Pot Recipes” lifehack.org)

strongwilled, tough: “positive terms for bastard” (Zoe Williams, Guardian, Mar 16 10)

team player: willing pawn “Someone who will allow us to do whatever we want to you.” (management.fortune.cnn.com, Feb 2012)

You’re overqualified: You’re too posh. (Or “we’ll have to pay you too much”.) And “we think you’ll be bored” means “we think you’ll look down on us”. (“She had no suitable position for someone so ‘overqualified’, which was a euphemism for saying that I was too old for the job… I told myself that ‘passing the responsibility on to her superiors’ was a polite way of saying I wouldn’t get the job.” People Speak, by Hayim Valder)

More here, and links to the rest.

Euphemisms About Class and Stuff (in Quotes)

There was nobody at all in the East End

“My rather simple family kept my own genetic secret for over half a century.” (geneticist Paul Nurse His father – actually his grandfather – was a farmworker.)

Row over NY developers installing “poor doors” – separate entrances for the affordable housing they have to provide. Green Party’s Darren Johnson said: “This shows contempt for ordinary people.” (July 2014)

Now for reshuffle winners. Team Cameron calls them "refreshing, representative and election winning" - code for 'good on telly & not posh'. (‏@bbcnickrobinson)
It has become acceptable to shop at Lidl. (Guardian July 2 2011 Presumably it was acceptable to a lot of people before 2011, or Lidl would have gone out of business.)

"What I like about east London is that it is still a bit edgy [...] It is so populated. Ten years ago there was nobody there." (Zaha Hadid)

“He seems to get around to a lot of places people haven’t visited before.” (Anthony Powell, What’s Become of Waring? The people who live in the places are of course “natives”. The novel was written in the 30s.)

Community seems to be a euphemism for the vulnerable lower orders. (Grayson Perry, New Statesman Oct 2014)


Is it too simplistic to suggest that this 'recovery' involves profits going up again and shareholders/bosses keeping almost all of them? (James O'Brien ‏@mrjamesob)

"I'm just old fashioned" = I know my views are outdated and probably sexist, racist, homophobic, or similar, but I'll keep them anyway. (@MrOzAtheist)


He said he was “managing director, digital” at a public relations firm.
“I don’t really know what that means.”
“I’m a digital and social-media strategist,” he explained. “I deliver programs, products, and strategies to our corporate clients across the spectrum of communications functions.”
“Sorry to be a doofus, but pretend I’m ten years old. What do you do all day? ”
“I teach big companies how to use Facebook.”(Gary Stephen Ross, walrus.com)


Support for the status quo is "nuanced", opposing the status quo is "predictable". (@OwenJones84)

Everyone gushed about how Clare Balding had got where she was because of graft and ability (which was another way of saying she wasn’t conventionally pretty and didn’t sleep her way to the top). (Times 2014-09-06)

There's poverty in the UK, but we are better off calling it inequality. (John Lanchester)

Rezidentura was Cold War Russian terminology for a KGB spy station overseas. (New Humanist August 2014)

Dark as in “the new Dr Who”: I think it involves the difference between “good” and “bad”, “hero” and “villain” being somewhat blurred. (Michael Savage ‏@Softspoken_One)

Poverty has structural causes. (We are not, repeat not, pointing the finger at anybody.)

“I’m sorry, but you’re too experienced.” It is, I believe, synonymous with, "I'm sorry, but we would have to pay you too much..." "Too experienced" could mean "I find you intimidating." (LinkedIn discussion) (Could also mean “You are taller than the boss”.)

physical: violent (He was accustomed to being physical with women, and, while his wife put up with the abuse, her daughter grew less and less inclined to stand by and watch. pulpinternational.com)

It's work experience and personality (ie being willing to get stuff done, smiling, easy to talk to) that get you jobs. (Commenter in Guardian)

Well, the head of chemistry sighed, the Salters course was quite new and so some of the stuffier universities might not look too favourably on it. These ‘stuffier’ universities seemed to overlap quite closely with my mental list of ‘good’ universities. (Web of Substance blog)


Surely, gov't cannot possibly cap rail fares. They've already said price regulation is unworkable socialist madness. *awaits announcement* (Alex Andreou ‏@sturdyAlex)
It’s unworkable socialist madness when proposed by socialists. When proposed by Tories, it’s supporting hard-working families. (Brian Johnson ‏@MustardSeedUK)

"Courtesy" call = irritating and pointless call. "Courtesy" car = deathtrap. (Sathnam Sanghera ‏@Sathnam)

"Let's restore peace" - "Let's return to killing and terrorizing random black folks without you people causing a fuss. Attention seekers!" (HSofia ‏@hsofia Week of Ferguson riots, Aug 2014)

What they call 'persistence' feels like plodding, doesn't it? A lot of plodding in success. (@alightheart)

Kids. Just let them be. Stop living through them, spoiling them and over indulging them. They deserve to be themselves. (@Nick_Pye  Yet another meaning for “be yourself”.)

Exams "unimaginative, little changed from Victorian times" and fail to ready pupils for the modern workplace, warns Eton's headmaster. He means: "Public schools do not come top in league tables, we need a different USP."

[In the 80s] the Observer carried a story based on a leak, claiming that MI5 secretly controlled the “hiring and firing’’ of BBC staff members in a vetting process known as “colleging” or “the formalities”. Telegraph Aug 2104

I was... voted “most scholarly” of my class, roughly equivalent to “least likely to have sex.” (medium.com)

materialism: Usually seems to be "other people wanting stuff". (Roman Iwaschkin)

General warning about the world; if a person/government has to tell you how democratic/peaceful/not racist/not misogynist they are, run. (@Fauxgyptian)

‏Also, western leaders are rarely called things like "master manipulator" even when so. But the tricksy Arabs are just that. (@Fauxgyptian Quoting from the Economist on Erdogan)

When cops shoot a black kid, ppl who gather to grieve are an "angry mob." When cops shoot a white kid... Hm I can't even think of an example (@YesYoureRacist)

political correctness: the term reactionaries use when they caught out behaving
badly. (Nick D)

didn’t suffer fools gladly: “obituary-ese for ‘ill-tempered and difficult’” (@WillWiles)

Security chief Zhou Yongkang is to be investigated for a “serious disciplinary offence” (code for bribery and influence-peddling). (The Week)

It's never described as 'elegant' or 'beautiful' with Germany. it's always 'clinical', 'well oiled' & 'efficient' why is this @GaryLineker? (@dallascampbell)

It is incredible how quickly folk resort to labels of 'negativity', 'aggression', 'confrontation' etc when faced with criticisms they dislike. ( ‏@How_Upsetting )

More here.