Euphemism

Hi guys,

It has been a while since I wrote my last journal. I've been up to my paper, which is about euphemism in English. Euphemism is widely applied in daily life and social life. The word “euphemism” comes from “Greek”, “eu” means “good” or “well”, the root “pheme” means “saying” or “speech”, and “ism” is a noun suffix. According to Oxford English Dictionary (OED), euphemism is “that figure of speech which consists in the substitution of a word or expression of comparatively favorable implication or less unpleasant associations, instead of the harsher or more offensive one that would more precisely designate what is intended”. Such as “The Maker”, “Gosh” and “Our Father” are all euphemisms for “God”.
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of Euphemisms: Negative euphemism and Positive euphemism. Negative euphemism rang between “death, excretion, bodily functions, religious matters, and sex”. For example, “to go to sleep forever, to go to heaven, to be under daisies ” are all euphemisms for “die ”.And we can see from them that euphemism is closely related to culture, especially the religion. Positive euphemism is common in those fields such as occupation, education, politics, and military affairs and so on. For example, “beauticain” is euphemism for “barber” and “intoxicate” for “drunk” .
My paper aims to study the gender differences on the euphemism usage in “Friends”. By comparing the frequency of euphemism usage , the gender differences on language are getting smaller with the development of society. Also,to have better intercultural communication, the semantic and pragmatic problems in cross-culture and the approach to avoiding them are presented.
Do you know any euphemism in your native language? Can you give some examples? Thank you in advance:D