black_robin's Journal

"Linguists are familiar with the phenomenon, which may be called the euphemism treadmill. People invent new words for emotionally charged referents, but soon the euphemism becomes tainted by association, and a new word must be found, which soon acquires its own connotations, and so on. Water closet becomes toilet (originally a term for any kind of body care, as in toilet kit and toilet water), which becomes bathroom, which becomes restroom, which becomes lavatory. Undertaker changes to mortician, which changes to funeral director. Garbage collection turns into sanitation, which turns into environmental services. Gym (from gymnasium, originally "high school") becomes physical education, which becomes (at Berkeley) human bio-dynamics. Even the word minority - the most neutral label conceivable, referring only to relative numbers - was banned in 2001 by San Diego City Council (and nearly banned by the Boston city Council) because it was deemed disparaging to non-whites. "No matter how you slice it, minority means less than," said a semantically challenged official at Boston College, where the preferred term is AHANA (an acronym for African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American).

The euphemism treadmill shows that concepts, not words, are primary in people's minds. Give a concept a new name, and the name becomes colored by the concept; the concept does not become freshened by the name, at least not for long. Names for minorities will continue to change as long as people have negative attitudes towards them. We will know that we achieved mutual respect when the names stay put."