CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................3 CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL PART OF THE RESEARCH.............................................6 1.1. ETYMOLOGY OF EUPHEMISMS.....................................................................................................6 THE "EUPHEMISM TREADMILL".........................................................................................................7 1.2. LASSIFICATION OF EUPHEMISMS...............................................................................................13 CLASSIFICATION OF EUPHEMISMS......................................................................................................13 THE EVOLUTION OF EUPHEMISMS.....................................................................................................14 EUPHEMISMS FOR THE PROFANE......................................................................................................15 CHAPTER 2. EUPHEMISMS IN ENGLISH AND KYRGYZ LANGUAGES.......................25 2.1EUPHEMISMS FOR DEATH.........................................................................................................25 SINCE THE MIDDLE AGES, IN WESTERNERS EYES, THE DEVIL WAS A POWERFUL KILLER, JUST LIKE A GAMBLING KING WHO WAS EVER VICTORIOUS. THE SAME AS DEATH, DEFORMITY WAS CLOYED, SO IT WILL BE BEAUTIFIED AND NEUTRALIZED . SUICIDE IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN CULTURE, WAS A KIND OF REVOLTING THAT MEANS THE SUICIDE HAS LOST FAITH OF GODS. MANKINDS DESIRE TO FORGET THE PROCESS OF AGING THAT LEADS INEVITABLY TO DEATH IS THE SOURCE OF A NUMBER OF KIND WORDS THAT MADE THE STAGES AND ROLES OF LIFE SEEM MORE BEARABLE. THE MOTIVES FOR EUPHEMIZING DEATH ARE IN MANY WAYS SIMILAR TO THOSE FOR DISGUISING OUR REFERENCES TO PREGNANCY AND BIRTH. THE TERMS CHANGE AND THE EUPHEMISMS GROW, BUT THE EVASION OF THE WORD DEATH SURVIVES. SUCH AS, THE GREAT REAPER, THE GREAT LEVELER, TO MAKE ONES FINAL EXIST, TO REST IN ABRAHAMS BOSOM, SOMEBODY IS GONE (TO HIS REST OR TO GLORY), SOMEBODY CEASED TO BE, BE NO MORE, PASS AWAY, BE DEPARTED FROM US, CLOSE ONES LIFE, CLOSE ONES EYES, KICK THE BUCKET, BREATH ONES LAST, GIVE UP THE GHOST, QUIT THIS WORLD. HERE WE HAVE CLOSE EXAMPLE SUCH AS: , , , , , , , . AS WE KNOW THE DEATH ONE FOR EVERYONE, THE DEATH NEVER LOOK WHAT COLOUR YOUR EYES OR WHAT IS YOUR NATIONALITY. DEATH COME FOR EVERYONE. - , , , . .............................................................................................28 IN CHINA, A KING AND A PEASANT HAVE DIFFERENT DEATH, WHICH SHOWS THE STRICTLY SOCIAL ESTATE SYSTEM. BUT IN ENGLISH THE GREAT LEVELER SHOWS POPES, KINGS, BEGGARS AND THIEVES ALIKE MUST DIE, WHICH REFLECTS WESTERNERS PURSUING EQUALITY. MAYBE YOU WONDER TO REST IN ABRAHAMS BOSOM, WHICH MEANS, TO BE DEAD WITH GODS. THIS EXPRESSION COMES FROM LUKE16:22, AND IT CAME TO PASS THAT THE BEGGAR DIED AND WAS CARRIED BY THE ANGEL INTO ABRAHAMS BOSOM. THE BIBLICAL PHRASE ITSELF MAY HAVE COME FROM THE ANCIENT CUSTOM OF THE HOSTS PERMITTING A DINNER GUEST TO RECLINE AGAINST HIS CHEST. IF YOU DID NOT KNOW THE STORY, YOU COULD NOT UNDERSTAND THE EUPHEMISM....................................................................................................28 2.2.SEXUAL EUPHEMISM.............................................................................................................46 CONCLUSION...................................................................................................55 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................57

Introduction This graduate paper is devoted to studing the euphemisms in two languages. As we know, still comparative study of languages was conducted mainly in the grammatical plan. It is absolutely clear and natural, as comparison of language phenomena is easier and more correct for carrying out within certain, limited to the settled set of rules, standard grammar in the most essence, than in such less certain and more indistinct spheres of language, as lexis and phraseology. However now, when the certain experience of comparative studying of grammatical categories in different languages is already stored, attention of linguists even more often addresses to lexicological and phraseological aspect of common problem of languages comparison, in particular, terminology. The aim of this diploma paper is focused on definitions of euphemisms, areas of use, relation between euphemisms and dysphemisms, effect of pejoration on euphemisms, possibilities of expressing euphemisms through figures of speech. In accordance with the aim of the research the following tasks have been set: - to reveal the etymology of the euphemisms; - to make a classification of Euphemisms; - to make definition and characteristic of euphemisms use in our speech; - to do a comparative analysis of euphemisms associated with death and sex in English and Kyrgyz languages; - to reveal distinctions and similarities of euphemisms in the Kyrgyz and English languages. Topicality of this research is that it reveals the role of euphemisms in speech of people and importance of their use in our lexicon. As we use a number of euphemisms at all without suspecting that it is that mystical word term euphemism. The present stage of science development in language puts a problem before researchers - to consider these questions anew on the basis of modern methods one of which is the method of studying language materials as a peculiar system. This system includes such a large number of elements connected by the most various relations that their systemacity is difficalt to imagine or often even called into question. There are irregular phenomena which description needs a large number of rules, closely connected with external, extralinguistic factors. All this complexity is characteristic for microsystem of euphemisms and it amplifies even more while carrying out comparative studying on the material of languages of different grammatical system. The novelty of research is that in it for the first time in the monographic plan euphemisms are investigated as one of the most important layers of lexicon of the Kyirgyz and English languages in synchronous and comparative aspect. The research and comparison of the

euphemisms words wich refer to the oldest group of words in the Kyrgyz and English languages have been done for the first time in this work. Object of research is classification of euphemisms in the Kyrgyz and English languages that gives chance to define genetic nature of the most widespread euphemisms meaning and their expression in the Kyrgyz and English languages. The objectives of this diploma work thesis are euphemisms and their usage in todays English and Kyrgyz. Euphemisms are indirect expressions that are used instead of harsher ones to avoid unpleasant moments, embarrassment, or offence. They are used in sensitive social areas where direct speaking is unsuitable, like death, diseases or sex. The concern of indirect speaking can be either on the side of a speaker, on the side of an audience or on the side of a third side. Values of euphemisms and their functional and semantic expression in the Kyrgyz and English languages become subject of research. In the offered research euphemisms meanings are exposed to studying. Euphemisms are use to replace social taboos, swearing, blasphemy, profanity and other offensive language, but they can be used just to make a common word sound more sophisticated. Since euphemisms are indirect expressions, the apprehension of a meaning can be difficult. Once a euphemism becomes known and starts to be used frequently in association with a sensitive or an unsuitable subject, negative connotations cause pejoration of a euphemism, which means the loss of indirect and therefore polite value of the euphemism. For indirect expressing, stylistic means like figures of speech can be used for expressing euphemisms. Material of research were lexicographic sources of Kyrgyz and English languages, among them Master dissertation: The language of the death by Eliecer Crespo Fernandez, Euphemisms words connected with illneses in the Kyrgyz and Turkish languages by Ahmet Gungor, Bachelor thesis: Euphemisms in todays English by Martina Jachkova, The Linguistics of Euphemism: A Diahronic Study of Euphemism Formation by Kerry LinfootHam, Explanatory dictionary of English language [L.: 1995], English-Russian dictionary of taboo lexis and euphemisms (M: 2001), English-Russian dictionary [M: 1976], RussianEnglish dictionary [M: 1990], Kyrgyz-Russian dictionary [B.: 1999], English-RussianKyrgyz dictionary [B.: 2001], and also a number of terminological dictionaries published in the former USSR.. Methods of research. In the research it is applied complex technique including descriptive, synchronous, comparative and method of componental (component) analysis. The present graduation work is the first attempt of comparative analysis and disclosure of euphemistic features and potentialities of English, Kyrgyz language arsenals. In work attempt is undertaken
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to generalize theoretical bases of semantic organization of euphemism in general series of lexical system to systematize hierarchical relations between semantic versions of investigated terminological lexis. The practical part of this work is aimed at death euphemism and sexual euphemisms. Those euphemisms are further analyzed according to the amount of words, word class and a similar meaning they share. Another subject of the research constitutes euphemisms that are expressed through figures of speech and euphemisms with a meaning dependent on a context. Practical importance of research. Results of research can be an important source while studying fundamental questions of euphemisms in the Kyrgyz and English languages, problems of theory and practice in literary translation of euphemisms, taboo lexis and units, studying history questions of euphemisms, in compilation of bilingual English-Kyrgyz and KyrgyzEnglish dictionaries of euphemisms. Euphemisms are use to replace social taboos, swearing, blasphemy, profanity and other offensive language, but they can be used just to make a common word sound more sophisticated. Since euphemisms are indirect expressions, the apprehension of a meaning can be difficult. Once a euphemism becomes known and starts to be used frequently in association with a sensitive or an unsuitable subject, negative connotations cause pejoration of a euphemism, which means the loss of indirect and therefore polite value of the euphemism.For indirect expressing, stylistic means like figures of speech can be used for expressing euphemisms. Structure of research answers assigned in the work object and purposes. Graduation work consists of introduction, two chapters, conclusion, bibliography and appendices.

Chapter 1. Theoretical part of the Research 1.1. Etymology of euphemisms It is more comfortable for people not to talk about unpleasant or embarrassing topics directly. The effort to be polite makes them replace offensive words by more acceptable ones. The purpose of the use of euphemisms is to avoid unsuitable words in order not to offend hearer. According to Enright, the word euphemism originates from Greek, where it means to speak in a good way (Enright, 2004). Primarily, euphemism was a milder term used as a substitution for taboo expressions only. Later, the use of euphemisms was enlarged for any vulgar, offensive, harsh, embarrassing, blunt or other indelicate term. The oldest social taboos that made people use euphemisms, occurred in areas exuding fear and respect such as religion or death. Unlike Enright, Alkire (Alkire, 2002) claims that euphemisms have Latin roots. There are many euphemistic phrases derived from Latin, which appeared especially after Norman Conquest in 1066, when Latin presented the language of the upper-class. Historical linguistics has revealed traces of taboo deformations in many languages. Several are known to have occurred in Indo-European languages, including the original ProtoIndo-European words for bear (*rtkos), wolf (*wlkwos), and deer (originally, hart; the deformation likely occurred to avoid confusion with heart). In different Indo-European languages, each of these words has a difficult etymology because of taboo deformations a euphemism was substituted for the original, which no longer occurs in the language. An example is the Slavic root for bear *medu-ed-, which means "honey eater". One example in English is "donkey" replacing the old Indo-European-derived word "ass". The word "dandelion" (lit., tooth of lion, referring to the shape of the leaves) is another example, being a substitute for pissenlit, meaning "wet the bed", a possible reference to the fact that dandelion was used as a diuretic. In some languages of the Pacific, using the name of a deceased chief is taboo. Amongst indigenous Australians, it is forbidden to use the name, image, or audio-visual recording of the deceased, so that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation now publishes a warning to indigenous Australians when using names, images or audio-visual recordings of people who have died. Since people are often named after everyday things, this leads to the swift development of euphemisms. These languages have a very high rate of vocabulary change. In a similar manner, classical Kyrgyz texts were expected to avoid using characters contained within the name of the currently ruling emperor as a sign of respect: ,

, this word meaning respect for husband. , , words which show respect for brother-in-law and sister-in-law. In these instances, the relevant ideographs were replaced by homophones. While this practice creates an additional wrinkle for anyone attempting to read or translate texts from the classical period, it does provide a fairly accurate means of dating the documents under consideration. The common names of illicit drugs, and the plants used to obtain them, often undergo a process similar to taboo deformation, because new terms are devised in order to discuss them secretly in the presence of others. This process often occurs in English (e.g. speed or crank for meth). It occurs even more in Spanish, e.g. the deformation of names for cannabis: mota (lit., "something which moves" on the black market), replacing grifa (lit., "something coarse to the touch"), replacing marihuana (a female personal name, Mara Juana), replacing caamo (the original Spanish name for the plant, derived from the Latin genus name Cannabis). All four of these names are still used in various parts of the Hispanophone world, although caamo ironically has the least underworld connotation, and is often used to describe industrial hemp, or legitimate medically-prescribed cannabis. The "euphemism treadmill" Euphemisms often evolve over time into taboo words themselves, through a process described by W.V.O. Quine, and more recently dubbed the "euphemism treadmill" by Steven Pinker. (cf. Gresham's Law in economics). This is the well-known linguistic process known as pejoration. Words originally intended as euphemisms may lose their euphemistic value, acquiring the negative connotations of their referents. In some cases, they may be used mockingly and become dysphemisms. For example, the term "concentration camp", to describe camps used to confine civilian members of the Boer community in close (concentrated) quarters, was used by the British during the Second Boer War, primarily because it sounded bland and inoffensive. Despite the high death rates in the British concentration camps, the term remained acceptable as a euphemism. However, after the Third Reich used the expression to describe its death camps, the term gained enormous negative connotation. In Kyrgyz variant we have similar example: - . Also (to give birth) latterly this word was euphemism, but now in Kyrgyz language this word changed to; , . Also, in some versions of English, "toilet room", itself a euphemism, was replaced with "bathroom" and "water closet", which were replaced with "restroom" and "W.C." These are also

examples of euphemisms which are geographically concentrated: the term "restroom" is rarely used outside of the United States and "W.C.", where before it was quite popular in Britain, is passing out of favour and becoming more popular in France and is the polite term of choice in Germany. Connotations easily change over time. "Idiot", "imbecile", and "moron" were once neutral terms for a developmentally delayed adult of toddler, preschool, and primary school mental ages, respectively.[4] As with Gresham's law, negative connotations tend to crowd out neutral ones, so the phrase mentally retarded was pressed into service to replace them. Now that, too, is considered rude, used commonly as an insult of a person, thing, or idea. As a result, new terms like "mentally challenged", "with an intellectual disability", "learning difficulties" and "special needs" have replaced "retarded". A similar progression occurred with: lame crippled handicapped disabled physically challenged differently abled although in the case of "crippled" the meaning has also broadened (and hence has been narrowed with adjectives, which themselves have been euphemised); a dyslexic or colorblind person, for example, would not be termed "crippled". Even more recent is the use of personcentric phrases, such as "person(s) with disability, dyslexia, colorblindness, etc.", which ascribe a particular condition to those previously qualified with the aforementioned adjectives. Euphemisms can also serve to recirculate words that have passed out of use because of negative connotation. The word "lame" from above, having faded from the vernacular, was revitalized as a slang word generally meaning "not living up to expectations". Connotation of a euphemism can also be subject-specific. The term "handicap" was in common use to describe a physical disability; it gained common use in sports and games to describe a scoring advantage given to a player who has a disadvantageous standing in ability, and this definition has remained common, even though the term as describing physical disability has mostly faded from common use. One exception to this is in the United States when designating "handicapped" parking spaces for such individuals. In the early 1960s, Major League Baseball franchise owner and promoter Bill Veeck, who was missing part of a leg, argued against the then-favored euphemism "handicapped", saying he preferred "crippled" because it was merely descriptive and did not carry connotations of limiting one's capability the way "handicapped" (and all of its subsequent euphemisms) seemed to do (Veeck as in Wreck, chapter "I'm Not Handicapped, I'm Crippled"). Later, comedian George Carlin gave a famous monologue of how he thought euphemisms can undermine appropriate attitudes towards serious issues such as the evolving terms describing the medical problem of the cumulative mental trauma of soldiers in high stress situations:

shell shock (World War I) battle fatigue (World War II) operational exhaustion (Korean War) posttraumatic stress disorder (Vietnam War) He contended that, as the name of the condition became more complicated and seemingly arcane, sufferers of this condition have been taken less seriously as people with a serious illness, and were given poorer treatment as a result. He also contended that Vietnam veterans would have received the proper care and attention they needed were the condition still called "shell shock". In the same routine, he echoed Bill Veeck's opinion that "crippled" was a perfectly valid term (and noted that early English translations of the Bible seemed to have no qualms about saying that Jesus "healed the cripples"). A complementary "dysphemism treadmill" exists, but is more rarely observed. One modern example is the word scumbag, which was originally a reference to a used condom, now is a fairly mild epithet. This is in stark contrast to the related term douchebag, which is still semicommon but has a much more negative connotation. Similarly, spastic was once a neutral descriptor of a sufferer of muscular hypertonicity. But after Joey Deacon appeared on UK children's TV programme Blue Peter, children began to use "spastic" (and variants such as "spaz" and "spacker") as an insult and the term is now seen as very offensive. The Spastics Society changed their name to Scope in 1994; children then began to use "Scoper" as a similar insult. In his remarks on the ever-changing London slang, made in Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell mentioned both the "euphemism treadmill" and the "dysphemism treadmill". He did not use the now-established terms, but observed and commented on the respective processes as early as in 1933. Definitions considering euphemisms do not differ very much. Euphemisms are described as milder or soft expressions used as a substitution to dispreferred terms. According to Holder (Holder, 2008) euphemism is a milder or uncertain term, which is used to replace an unsuitable or impertinent expression. Horny (Horny, 2005) defines euphemisms as word or expressions that refer indirectly to some unsuitable, unpleasant or embarrassing issue in order to make it seem more acceptable. Longmans (Longman, 2009) definition of euphemisms considers the presence of a hearer. According to the dictionary, euphemism is an indirect term that is used by a speaker to save a hearer from being shocked or feeling embarrassed or upset. According to Glone (Glone, 2003), a speaker using euphemisms is motivated not only by a hearer. Glone claims that here exists a term face. Face means how a speaker represents himself/herself and signifies his/her social image. In situations, when mentioning a subject with negative connotations is necessary, a speaker saves his/her face by the use of a euphemism.

Also Allan (Allan, 1991) involves possible loss of a face into his definition of euphemisms. He claims that a euphemism is a substitution for an inappropriate term, which is used to save the face of a speaker, hearer or the face of some third party. Reasons for the Use of Euphemisms The reason for a euphemistic substitution is not only to soften a vulgar expression. Alkire (Alkire, 2002) argues that euphemisms can be used to make speech or text more sophisticated. He provides an example of the euphemism attorney, which sounds more refined than the word lawyer. Katamba (Katamba, 2005) agrees that avoidance of hurting someone is not the major reason for the use of euphemisms. In his opinion, people use euphemisms to deal with social taboos that are individual of every culture. Social taboos constitute topics respected by people. Most significant are terms related to religion, where e. g. the name of God is substituted by expressions Lord, the King of Glory, The All- Powerful. According to Holder (Holder, 2008), fear of the devil made people replace his name by attributes like Black Lad, Prince of the Darkness or Bad Man. Holder also characterizes euphemisms from a semantic point of view. He claims that euphemisms have their former, derived meaning, which has become a euphemism on the basis of association (e. g. metaphors used for dying to sleep, to go under, to leave the land. Euphemisms can be used either in spoken or written language. According to Crystal (Crystal, 2005), there are more euphemisms typical for spoken language in English because written language does not deal with slang or obscene vocabulary. Obscene words appear in a text only in the form of graphic euphemisms. Euphemisms cover important events of human existence. Alego (Alego, 2005) points out that they often appear in contexts referring to unhappiness of human life, like death or diseases, but they also refer to very emotive events such as birth. Negative Sides of Euphemisms Enright (Enright, 2004) defines euphemisms as dishonest expressions. In his opinion, the purpose of euphemisms is to conceal true essence of speech. Speaker refers to a subject using circuits and real subject is hidden. There might be doubts on the side of the audience, because there is a chance that they do not understand the meaning properly. Euphemisms are often used in reference to negatively perceived social actions, which speaker is ashamed to mention directly. Burridge (Burridge, 2004) claims that by referring to topics like war or killing euphemistically, those topics might appear tolerable. Euphemisms in this case create an excuse for such social actions and lead humans to perceive them with a respect. Katamba (Katamba, 2005) uses term doublespeak for this kind of euphemisms. He is convinced that euphemistic substitutions for brutal and inhuman acts make them look tolerable

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and civilised. Totalitarian regimes and militaristic regime use doublespeak to conceal shocking reality. The word preventive is used to refer to unprovoked military actions (preventive war) and the collocation preventive detention signifies the retention of political detractors. Although euphemisms have their negative sides they can make life much easier as well. Enright (Engright, 2005) claims that euphemisms make truths less painful because people can avoid direct speaking. They also encourage a speaker to talk about things which he would be ashamed to mention directly. Both interlocutors are saved from loosing their faces or embarrassing moments and hurting feelings. Audience can learn something more about a speakers attitude towards the topic and help a speaker to persuade his listeners by pointing out different perspectives. According to Burridge (Burridge, 2004), euphemisms contribute to the development and enriching of English language by a new expressions, because they are based on associations and associations still change. Euphemisms and style Allan (Allan, 1991) found out that euphemisms are not represented only by lexemes. He claims that euphemisms, like synonyms, are chosen according to the context. Style and euphemisms are in a relation, in which euphemisms support the intended style and style supports euphemisms. According to him, each expression should be assessed according to a context. It is essential to see the links between the word and its context to talk about euphemisms. Context provides extra information, apart from dictionaries of euphemisms. The effort to maintain a face is involved in every social interaction where context is crucial. There exist rules, which should be observed by a speaker to save his/her own face and to be considerate of the face of his interlocutor. Allan renders four conventions that should be adhered by a speaker to stay euphemistic: 1) Speaker should state his argument clearly. He should omit any extra data that are not necessary for hearer to understand. 2) Speaker should act frankly and not give any information he is not sure to be truth. 3) Speaker should keep within the context, not digress or be irrelevant. Giving misleading information may cause incomprehension. 4) Speaker should avoid ambiguity, compose his message stylistically suitable and omit unnecessarily long sentences. Allan adds that effect of speakers words on his own face and on the face of an audience should be considered. In spoken language, both interlocutors are responsible for degree of politeness of the discussion. Means used in order to keep a particular style of discussion are individual of each participant. The policy of saving face is close to the art of diplomacy. It is

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fundamental to be considerate, tactful and tolerable to others. Degree of sensibility should not be exaggerated, because excessive politeness could be seen as ironic and therefore dysphemistic.

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1.2. lassification of euphemisms Classification of euphemisms Many euphemisms fall into one or more of these categories:

Terms of foreign and/or technical origin (derrire, copulation, perspire, urinate, security Abbreviations (GD for goddamn, SOB for son of a bitch, BS for bullshit, TS for tough

breach, mierda de toro, prophylactic, feces occur, sheisst)

shit, SOL for shit out of luck or PDQ for pretty damn(ed) quick,[8] BFD for big fucking deal, STFU or STHU for shut the fuck/hell up, RTFM for read the fucking manual)
o

Abbreviations using a spelling alphabet, especially in military contexts (Charlie

Foxtrot for "Cluster fuck", Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Oscar for "What the fuck, over?", Bravo Sierra for "bullshit" See Military slang)
o

Plays on abbreviations (H-e-double hockey sticks for "hell", "a-double snakes" or

"a-double-dollar-signs" for "ass", Sugar Honey Iced Tea for "shit", bee with an itch or witch with a capital B for "bitch", catch (or see) you next Tuesday (or Thursday) for "cunt")
o o

Use in mostly clinical settings (PITA for "pain in the ass" patient) Abbreviations for phrases that are not otherwise common (PEBKAC for "Problem

Exists Between Keyboard And Chair", ID Ten T Error or ID-10T Error for "Idiot", TOBAS for "Take Out Back And Shoot")

Abstractions and ambiguities (it for excrement, the situation for pregnancy, going to the

other side for death, do it or come together in reference a sexual act, tired and emotional for drunkenness.)

Indirections (behind, unmentionables, privates, live together, go to the bathroom, sleep Mispronunciation (goldarnit, dadgummit, efing c (fucking cunt), freakin, be-atch,shoot Litotes or reserved understatement (not exactly thin for "fat", not completely truthful for Changing nouns to modifiers (makes her look slutty for "is a slut", right-wing element for slang, eg. pot for marijuana, laid for sex and so on

together, sub-navel activities)

See minced oath)

"lied", not unlike cheating for "an instance of cheating")

"Right Wing")

There is some disagreement over whether certain terms are or are not euphemisms. For example, sometimes the phrase visually impaired is labeled as a politically correct euphemism for blind. However, visual impairment can be a broader term, including, for example, people who have partial sight in one eye, or even those with uncorrected poor vision, a group that would be excluded by the word blind.

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There are three antonyms of euphemism: dysphemism, cacophemism, and power word. The first can be either offensive or merely humorously deprecating with the second one generally used more often in the sense of something deliberately offensive. The last is used mainly in arguments to make a point seem more correct. The evolution of euphemisms Euphemisms may be formed in a number of ways. Periphrasis or circumlocution is one of the most common to "speak around" a given word, implying it without saying it. Over time, circumlocutions become recognized as established euphemisms for particular words or ideas. To alter the pronunciation or spelling of a taboo word (such as a swear word) to form a euphemism is known as taboo deformation. There is an astonishing number of taboo deformations in English, of which many refer to the infamous four-letter words. In American English, words which are unacceptable on television, such as fuck, may be represented by deformations such as freak even in children's cartoons. Some examples of rhyming slang may serve the same purpose to call a person a berk sounds less offensive than to call him a cunt, though berk is short for Berkeley Hunt which rhymes with cunt. Bureaucracies such as the military and large corporations frequently spawn euphemisms of a more deliberate nature. Organizations coin doublespeak expressions to describe objectionable actions in terms that seem neutral or inoffensive. For example, a term used in the past for contamination by radioactive isotopes is Sunshine units. Military organizations kill people, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by mistake; in doublespeak, the first may be called neutralizing the target and the second collateral damage. Violent destruction of non-state enemies may be referred to as pacification. Two common terms when a soldier is accidentally killed (buys the farm) by their own side are friendly fire or blue on blue (BOBbing) "buy the farm" has its own interesting history. Execution is an established euphemism referring to the act of putting a person to death, with or without judicial process. It originally referred to the execution, i.e., the carrying out, of a death warrant, which is an authorization to a sheriff, prison warden, or other official to put a named person to death. In legal usage, execution can still refer to the carrying out of other types of orders; for example, in U.S. legal usage, a writ of execution is a direction to enforce a civil money judgment by seizing property. Likewise, lethal injection itself may be considered a euphemism for putting the convict to death by poisoning. Abortion originally meant premature birth, and came to mean birth before viability. The term "abort" was extended to mean any kind of premature ending, such as aborting the launch of a rocket. Euphemisms have developed around the original meaning. Abortion, by itself, came to

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mean induced abortion or elective abortion exclusively. Hence the parallel term spontaneous abortion, an "act of nature", was dropped in favor of the more neutral-sounding miscarriage. Industrial unpleasantness such as pollution may be toned down to outgassing or runoff descriptions of physical processes rather than their damaging consequences. Some of this may simply be the application of precise technical terminology in the place of popular usage, but beyond precision, the advantage of technical terminology may be its lack of emotional undertones and the likelihood the general public (at least initially) will not recognize it for what it really is; the disadvantage being the lack of real-life context. Terms like "waste" and "wastewater" are also avoided in favor of terms such as byproduct, recycling, reclaimed water and effluent. In the oil industry, oil-based drilling muds were simply renamed organic phase drilling muds, where organic phase is a euphemism for "oil". Euphemisms for the profane Profane words and expressions in the English language are commonly taken from three areas: religion, excretion, and sex. While profanities themselves have been around for centuries, their limited use in public and by the media has only slowly become socially acceptable, and there are still many expressions which cannot be used in polite conversation. One vantage point into the current societal tolerance of profane language is found in the frequency of such language on prime-time television. The word damn (and most other religious profanity in the English language) has lost its shock value, and as a consequence, euphemisms for it (e.g., dang, darn-it) have taken on a very stodgy feeling. Excretory profanity such as piss and shit in some cases may be acceptable among informal (and usually younger)[citation needed] friends (while they almost are never acceptable in formal relationships or public use); euphemisms such as Number One and Number Two may be preferred for use with children. Most sexual terms and expressions, even technical ones, either remain unacceptable for general use or have undergone radical rehabilitation. There are many areas in todays English, where euphemisms are used frequently. These areas deal with socially unaccepted or feared issues, which people are ashamed to talk about directly. Among the most common and oldest belong euphemisms connected with death, religion and sex. On the other hand there are areas of euphemisms which are connected to recent society, like euphemisms for business, politics or addictions. This section covers the most common fields where euphemisms are used, focuses on the reasons which lead humans to use euphemistic substitutions and gives examples of euphemisms in a particular field. Euphemisms Connected with Death According to Enright (Enright, 2005), the word death is one of the oldest taboos. For centuries people have been determined not to use the term death directly and nowadays they

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still search for substitutions. That is why there exist many euphemisms for the topic. He claims that consideration of feelings of family members and fear of unknown constitutes the motivations for euphemistic substitutions. Allan (Allan, 1991) agrees that the theme of death is taboo because people have always been scared of dying. In his opinion, the fear is motivated by worries of loosing relatives or close friends, people are feared of what will follow after death, frustrated of disgust of the dead body and scared of evil spirits. Holder (Holder, 2008) sets examples of euphemistic expressions for death commonly used in todays English. He declares that words that are often used denote leaving for unknown places or sleeping: to pass away, pass on the other side, pass over, pass into the next world, leave the land of the living, go to heaven, go to our rest, go to a better place, go to our long home, go west, go under, sleep away, return to ashes, , , , , , , , , , , . Holder claims that euphemisms standing for killing someone are often idioms of the verb to put: put (a persons) lights out, put against a wall, put away, put daylight through, put down, put on the spot, put out of your troubles, put to sleep or put to the sword, , , . According to him, euphemisms for suicide are denoted by the word self: self deliverance, self-execution or self-violence. Euphemisms Connected with Religion Euphemisms used in religion are motivated by human prejudices, respect for God, fear of devil and evil forces. According to Enright (Enright, 2004) the word God is a euphemism because it is a universal term, not a name. But people cautiously replace the word God by euphemisms. Euphemisms for God or Jesus often take the form of remodelings of the names: Gosh, Gee, George, Gum, Cheesus, Bejaysus, Chrissakes. The euphemistic substitutions for God or names of saints are often used to soften the swearing. Enright (Enright, 2004) points out that the expression bloody is a remodeling of the expression by our lady referring to Gods mother. Bloody is dysphemistic in todays English and substituted by words bleeding or blinking. Holder (Holder, 2008) claims that people feared of evil give flattering euphemistic names to malevolent spirits: black gentleman, black prince for Devil, evil fairies are called good folk or neighbours.

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English language contains many euphemisms for devil. Many of them could be recognized by words black or old : black man, black lad, black Sam, black spy, black gentleman, old Nick, old dad, old chap, old Roger, old smoker or old sooty. Euphemisms Connected with Politics Burridge (Burridge, 2004) noticed the similarity between euphemisms used as substitutions for religion and supernatural powers and euphemisms used in politics. According to her, human interest not to antagonize Gods and supernatural powers is comparable with interest of politicians to insinuate into the favour of their electorate. According to Ostermeier (Ostermeier, 2009), using euphemisms connected with raising taxes is common in todays politics. There is increasing number of euphemisms for the issue. Most widely used are expressions like revenue raise, progressive revenue or progressive taxation. There are words, which denote particular activity or field used in politics. Holder (Holder, 2008) gives examples of the word special, which refers to illegal or inhuman activities. The expression special treatment means to torture or kill political opponents, nuclear weapons are referred to by the term special weapons. The expression special operations signifies secret and illegal operations. The word strategic, is used by politicians in reference to unsuccessful actions. Expressions strategic movement to the rear and strategic withdrawal refer to military failure. Another semantically marked word is the word peoples, often used to conceal the idea of autocracy. The terms peoples democracy, or peoples republic, peoples party are connected with the autocratic regime. Holder claims that political vocabulary contains many euphemistic expressions denoting war e. g. armed struggle, conflict, confrontation, counter-attack, incident, intervention, limited action, operation. Political Correctness Enright (Enright, 2004) defines political correctness as an intended selection of terms without offending associations towards minorities or substitutions for terms arousing discrimination. It is evident that expressions politically correct are more formal and stable than euphemisms and are related to issues of discrimination and other subjects that are offensive for races or minorities. Crystal (Crystal, 2002) claims that in 1980s many people promoted an idea of nondiscriminatory terms concerning minorities. Vocabulary causing prejudices in gender, race, sexuality, personal development or ecology should have been omitted and substituted by more

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acceptable terms. In 1990s this effort was called political correctness. E. g. mentally handicapped people were referred to as people with learning difficulties or the expression disabled people was substituted by differently able. In 1990s people showed strong disagreement with political correctness, they felt oppression in expressing their ideas and political correctness was compared to McCarthyism. Uncomfortable ideas were suppressed by the means of politically correct terminology. Political correctness met with general criticism on its inefficiency, because it was evident that more appropriate terms will not change the problematic and changing terminology will make the issues more visible. Responses on terminological reformations are various. Crystal claims that it was difficult for humans to decide on one term as an overall and acceptable one. He gives an instance of the vast majority of blacks, who are more comfortable with the term black rather than with politically correct Afro-Americans. But according to Burridge (Burridge, 2004), the aim of political correctness is no longer only intention not to offend some minorities. She offers some examples of politically correct terms that have nothing to do with racism or sexism, such as politically correct expression background actors which is more likely a euphemism. Political correctness is connected with proper behaviour and with social etiquette. According to her it has become unclear what political correctness actually is and nowadays there is practically no difference between political correctness and euphemisms. Euphemisms Connected with Business Business euphemisms deal with many areas like employment, advertisement, financing, banking and bankruptcy. Holder (Holder, 2008) renders many euphemisms in todays English referring to jobs. The reason for that is to avoid offending people working in low positions or people whose jobs are apprehended as inferior. E. g. the word agent is commonly used for elevating the title of a job (press agent which means publicist), or the euphemistic expression exterminating engineer, which refers to a rat catcher. He claims that todays English is rich in terms suggesting loss of a job or unemployment, eg. reduction in force, relieve, redundant, to reduce the headcount, to be selected out, to seek fresh challenges. Language of Estate agents contains expressions concealing the negative sides of the house and supporting only the good points. Holder points out that the age of a house is commonly referred to without mentioning the actual year or period. Georgian house, ante-bellum, ideal of modernization, period property are often used in evasion of the proper data. Another field dealing with euphemisms is according to Holder related to financial problems. In

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company records could be referred to as financial difficulties, cash flow problem or in the red. Situations when competition threatens market shares of a company could be called challenging. Typical example of euphemisms is the language used in advertising. Advertising language provides information which only emphasize positive qualities of a product and conceals the unsuitable facts. According to Burridge (Burridge, 2004), the aim of the language used in advertisements is to influence potential customers. The message is composed in a way that apprehensions can vary and misleading effect is common. Burridge focused on food advertisements and assembled adjectives that are often used in the field. The most frequent are adjectives new, good, healthy, creamy, perfect, fresh, natural and others. Burrige renders the term Handy package, which is euphemistic expression for package of the product, which was reduced in size, but the price remains the same. She claims that comparatives like softer or bigger are often used in advertising without introducing the article which is being compared with the product. According to her, reliability of many advertisements is speculated, because advertisement can be ambiguous. Advertisers could claim that sportsmen use their deodorants, but which sportsmen they mean is unclear. Holder (Holder, 2008) claims that bankruptcy today is not such a taboo as it was in the past. In Victorian era, money shortage was seen as a big disgrace and euphemisms for it were comparable to euphemisms standing for death. The arrest for debt was a strongly feared issue in 18 th century. Holder

adds that euphemisms for bankruptcy and debts are used more today, but the degree of negative connotations has become lower. He provides examples of substitutions for bankruptcy and debts: negative cash situation or cash flow problem. Euphemisms Connected with Diseases and Medicine Euphemisms in this field deal with the most serious diseases. Holder (Holder, 2008) claims that medical jargon is often used by doctors instead of generally understandable reference to the illness. Scientific terms are not clearly euphemisms, but the message is indirect and understanding might be doubtful (e. g. coronary inefficiency). Holder (Holder, 2008) claims there are many negatively associated terms in English containing French, which is caused by mutual disfavour of the countries. French used with diseases has obvious negative connotations but it is unclear which disease is being discussed, e. g. French ache, or French disease refers to syphilis. Heart conditions are according to Holder another issue which is covered by euphemistic substitutions. He points out that a bad heart condition or heart attack could be replaced by cardiac incident, cardiac arrest, heart problem.

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Holder argues that meaning of mental diseases could be obfuscated by unmentioned extent of illness. The words referring to mental diseases are not graded. The word mad could mean slight mental disorder but also can be used for more serious mental illness. The hidden degree of seriousness is euphemistic feature of words like: off the wall, off your gourd, off your head, off your napper, off your rocker, off your tree, off your trolley, etc. Parker (Parker, 2007) points out that euphemism treadmill is clearly seen on the words denoting mental diseases. In the beginning of 19th century, words like idiot, imbecile, moron, were euphemisms. The reality denoted by the words brings negative connotations along. Less offensive terms are recreated to show a respect and to give a hope to family members. Allan (Allan, 1991) renders euphemisms connected with healing of diseases. Often used is the verb to fight against a disease or in the case of cancer crusade is used. He claims that words denoting diseases are intrinsically bad. That is why names of diseases are used dysphemisticaly. Maledictions are made by the use of disease name in every language. Allan gives an example of malediction A pox on you which is used in modern English. Euphemisms Connected with Human Body and Sex Most of euphemistic expressions are connected with sex and bodily effluvia. According to Enright (Enright, 2004), words with sexual connotations are intrinsically dysphemistic and therefore there are still being coined new euphemisms. Taboo words concerning sex are often used for swearing or abusing because of their dysphemistic nature. Euphemisms dealing with sex and bodily effluvia are conditioned by distaste and embarrassment. Holder (Holder, 2008) sets examples of euphemisms for sweat or bad breath. Both could evoke an embarrassment to a person by a straight or a dysphemistic allusion of a smell. The smell is referred to as an odor or a smell, the person is odorously challenged. Euphemisms are used for expressions denoting socially unsuitable behavior, like belching, which is substituted by break wind. Attitudes of the society towards human body change. Bedroll (Bedroll, 2007) claims that during the Queen Victoria reign it was inconceivable to mention any bodily part in society. Dysphemistic associations were attributed even in reference to a leg of a chicken. Holder (Holder, 2008) argues that todays English has a few expressions of bodily functions that cannot be referred to directly. Most common are euphemistic substitutions used in reference to a sexual partner e. g. mistress, mate, boy/girlfriend, miss, good friend. In referring to sexual act, expressions with get e. g. get busy with, get into bed with, get your share, get your green and other evasive terms are common e. g. contact with, conversation, the main thing, to make happy, to mate, conquer a bed.

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According to Holder, todays English deals with euphemisms connected with lavatory and excretion in a large number. He claims that the lavatory room is substituted by e. g. powder room, private office, rest room, plumbing, smallest room, hygiene facilities or toilet. We have euphemisms but not a lot. The act of urinating is referred to as: to empty a bladder, to wash your hands, to freshen up. The letter P is often the initiative letter in expressions referring to the act of urinating, e. g. to pass the water, pee-pee, to perform a natural function, to pick, pluck, pull a pea. Negative connotations of prostitution have lasted for centuries and according to Holder there is still a number of euphemisms used in todays English (e. g. night job, the oldest profession), words girl and lady often denote a prostitute e. g. working girl, lady of the night, call girl, lady of pleasure, street girl, crib girl, cross girl, currency girl. Expressions referring to a brothel are usually idiomatic with the word house e. g. house of sin, house of pleasure, house of evil repute, house of ill fame, house of profession, house of sale, house of tolerance, house in the suburbs. Another issue, which Holder deals with is childbirth. He claims that there are many euphemisms referring to pregnancy, eg: to be in the family way, joining the club, anticipating, on her way in trouble, or to have a full belly. In a Kyrgyz variant we use following words: , , . Except of its relation to sex, there are many other taboos that are rather avoided, for example illegitimacy, unknown father, unwanted pregnancy, interruption, or use of contraception. Words chance and love are frequently used in reference to illegitimate child. Holder renders e. g. chance born, chance child, come by chance, chance begot, love child, love- born, love-begotten, or a love bird. Unwanted child could be called eg. arranged by circumstances, an accident, mistake or misfortune. Interruption is a very sensitive issue in todays English, therefore Holder introduces many euphemisms dealing with the topic, e. g. pro-choice, pregnancy interruption, planed termination, to bring off, reproductive freedom. There are similar reasons for euphemistic substitutions of the issue of contraception. Commonly used euphemisms for contraception pills are e. g. female pills, on the pill, at the pill. Condom is referred to e. g. as a rubber cookie, or rubber johnny. Euphemisms Connected with Addictions Todays English has to deal with socially unaccepted issues like alcohol, drugs and gambling. Holder (Holder, 2008) claims that people choose to prefer evasive language, because the topic deals with many personal destructions. Not only physical and psychical health is damaged, but the person might have to face up to debts, destroyed family and a social shame.

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According to Holder, addictions could be called weaknesses, e. g. weakness for the drink meaning alcoholism or weakness for the horses represents gambling addiction. Holder points out that euphemisms concerning addictions in gambling are usually replaced by terms like to play or a game. The players could be referred to as e. g. bookmakers, commission agents or turf accountants and the gambling machines could be called e. g. fruit machines. Holder renders many euphemisms connected with alcohol. Most common is the word drink, which might be used as a verb or a noun in phrases e. g. have a drink, drink a lot, drink some or drink too much. Other expressions referring to alcohol are e. g. bottle, cocktail, shot, snort, snifter, sip, tip, spot, plasma or transfusion. Other common substitutions are concerning the conditions after usage of intoxicants, e. g. legless, racked, rattled, under the table, under the influence, spaced out, overtired, tipped, stewed, whistled, slewed, pickled, potted, stewed, screwed, junked up, scorched, in liquor, in the bag, illuminated. The common feature in this category is conversion, nouns and verbs could be converted into adjectives, signifying drunkenness e. g. a bottle bottled, drink drunk, liquor liquored, refresher refreshed, juice juiced, sozzle sozzled, souse - soused or to load loaded. In Kyrgyz language we have similar examples such as: , , , , , . Smoking as another addiction contains euphemistic expressions for smoking marihuana. Holder claims that marihuana could be substituted by the expressions e. g. marijuana, weed, pot, hemp, Mexican brown, hash, mary jane or green grass and for the consequences of smoking marihuana are used expressions like to turn into a hash-head, or to become hooked. Euphemisms for hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin are frequently referring to its white color e. g. sugar. Holder also renders words like white and snow, which are used to form collocations, e. g. white girl, white lady, white line, white powder, China white, white stuff. He claims that the word snow refers to the addicted person who is under the influence of the cocaine, e. g. snowed in, snowed under, snowed up, snowman or snow-blind. Another expressions referring to drugs are e. g. happy dust, substance, powder or pharmaceuticals. Euphemisms in context Euphemisms can be difficult to understand without a given context. Mainly figurative expressions are problematic because they are expressed indirectly. There are also words that sound very universal, their usage is usually very indirect and they are hard to be comprehended unless the context is clear.

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Figurative Euphemisms Some euphemisms are expressed indirectly through figures of speech. The apprehension of figurative euphemisms is difficult unless there is the context given. Figurative euphemisms consist of more than one word and are mostly expressed through metaphors. Blue-on-blue incidents a metaphorical euphemism that refers to mistaken shooting states own rows. Cloudy outlook a metaphorical euphemism that refers to a bad situation in the area unemployment. Hurt home prices a personification concerning effects of the financial crisis on prices of a real estate. Long road to recovery a metonymy referring to the duration of the financial crisis. Mood of the times a metaphorical euphemism that indirectly points at the financial crisis and its impacts on economy.Putting pressure on wages a metaphorical expression that hides the meaning of cutting the wages. Some euphemistic expressions might have more meanings when they appear alone. Only given context contributes to the apprehension of a particular meaning. The Euphemism Issue Issue is very common euphemistic expression, universally used as a substitution for various sensitive topics commonly used in political articles. The word itself is often used as a substitution for armed confrontations (e. g. the nuke issue). Because the noun issue is very indirect, it can be used in reference to sensitive topics, mentioned in a text for the second time: Issue, or the issue is used in reference to nuclear plants and extracting oil resources. Issue could refer to political or economic problems of a state or the relationship of two countries: Its not just an issue between China and US but the word economy as whole. The word issue can be used as just a one-word expression, or it can be combined with terms that make it more direct: The nuke issue - the issue considering the danger of potential use of the nuclear weapons. Detainee issue problems of illegal immigrants that were arrested. (e. g. resolve Guantanamo detainee issue.) The charged issue of race an effort to exclusion of some minorities from their right to elect. The Euphemism Impact Kuwait try to of at a

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Another euphemism, the noun impact appears mostly in todays economical articles dealing not only with financial crisis. The word might stay on its own, so a reader is not able to think of a concrete sense, which is generally negative: Other impacts will reduce the revenue. The word impact might appear with words that clarify that there are negative financial impacts: Transocean feels the financial impact from the loss of the nine-year-old floating rig.

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Chapter 2. Euphemisms in English and Kyrgyz languages 2.1Euphemisms for death Some experiences are too intimate and vulnerable to be discussed without linguistic safeguards. One of them is undoubtedly death, a timeless taboo in which psychological, religious and social interdictions coexist. Given the pervasiveness of metaphor to refer to human mortality, the present study proceeds to trace an account of the different conceptual metaphors aiming at substituting the notions of death and dying. In results obtained support the idea that there was a tendency to present sentimental obituaries in which the taboo of death can be accounted for by various conceptual metaphors, most of which view death as a desirable event under the influence of beliefs. Mankind's failure to come to terms with death has been pervasive in different times and societies. In fact, human beings have traditionally felt reluctant to deal with the subject of death using straight for ward terms. Whether owing to superstition, fear or social respect, the fact remains that when facing death language users try to soften the effect of what they really wish to communicate. To this end, they resort to euphemism, i.e. the semantic or formal process thanks'to which the taboo is stripped of its most explicit, offensive or obscene overtones. From this viewpoint, euphemism is not merely a response to a forbidden subject; rather, it provides a way to speak about the taboo, that is, about the unspeakable, about those concepts banned from public domain and removed from our consciousness. This refusal to speak freely of human mortality is, as Sexton (1997: 335) points out, symptomatic of the overall discomfort with the subject of death as whole. The English language contains numerous euphemisms related to dying, death, burial, and the people and places which deal with death. The practice of using euphemisms for death is likely to have originated with the magical belief that to speak the word "death" was to invite death; where to "draw Death's attention" is the ultimate bad fortune a common theory holds that death is a taboo subject in most English-speaking cultures for precisely this reason. It may be said that one is not dying, but fading quickly because the end is near. People who have died are referred to as having passed away or passed or departed. Deceased is a euphemism for "dead", and sometimes the deceased is said to have gone to a better place, but this is used primarily among the religious with a concept of Heaven. Some Christians often use phrases such as gone to be with the Lord or called to higher service (this latter expression being particularly prevalent in the Salvation Army) or "graduated" to express their belief that physical death is not the end, but the beginning of the fuller realization of redemption. There are many euphemisms for the dead body, some polite and some profane, as well as dysphemisms such as worm food, or dead meat. Modern rhyming slang contains the expression brown bread. The corpse was once referred to as the shroud (or house or tenement) of clay, and
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modern funerary workers use terms such as the loved one (title of a novel about Hollywood undertakers by Evelyn Waugh) or the dear departed. (They themselves have given up the euphemism funeral director for grief therapist, and hold arrangement conferences with relatives.) Among themselves, mortuary technicians often refer to the corpse as the client. A recently dead person may be referred to as "the late John Doe". The term cemetery for "graveyard" is a borrowing from Greek, where it was a euphemism, literally meaning 'sleeping place'. The term undertaking for "burial" is so well-established that most people do not even recognize it as a euphemism. In fact, undertaking has taken on a negative connotation, as undertakers have a devious reputation. Contemporary euphemisms and dysphemisms for death tend to be quite colorful, and someone who has died is said to have , , , , , - passed away, passed on, checked out, bit the big one, kicked the bucket, bitten the dust, popped their clogs, pegged it, carked it, turned their toes up, bought the farm, cashed in their chips, fallen off their perch, croaked, given up the ghost (originally a more respectful term, cf. the death of Jesus as translated in the King James Version of the Bible Mark 15:37), gone south, gone west, gone to California, shuffled off this mortal coil (from William Shakespeare's Hamlet), Run down the curtain and joined the Choir Invisible, or assumed room temperature (actually a dysphemism in use among mortuary technicians). When buried, they may be said to be pushing up daisies, sleeping the big sleep, taking a dirt nap, checking out the grass from underneath or six feet under. There are hundreds of such expressions in use. (Old Burma-Shave jingle: "If daisies are your favorite flower, keep pushin up those miles per hour!") In Edwin Muir's 'The Horses' a euphemism is used to show the elimination of the human race 'The seven days war that put the world to sleep.' Euthanasia also attracts euphemisms. One may put one out of one's misery, put one to sleep, or have one put down, the latter two phrases being used primarily with dogs and cats who are being or have been euthanized by a veterinarian. (These terms are not usually applied to humans, because both medical ethics and law deprecate euthanasia.) In fact, Dr. Bernard Nathanson has pointed out that the word "euthanasia" itself is a euphemism, being Greek for "good death". There are a few euphemisms for killing which are neither respectful nor playful, but rather clinical and detached. Some examples of this type are terminate, wet work, to take care of one or to take them for a ride, to do them in, to off, or to take them out. To cut loose or open up on someone or something means "to shoot at with every available weapon". There are also many dysphemisms, especially for death, which are euphemisms or dysphemisms for other unpleasant events and thus are unpleasant in their literal meaning, used to
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generalize a bad event. "Having your ass handed to you", "left for the rats", "toasted", "roasted", "burned", "pounded", "bent over the barrel", "screwed over" or other terms commonly describe death or the state of imminent death, but also are common in describing defeat of any kind such as a humiliating loss in a sport or video game, being unfairly treated or cast aside in business affairs, being badly beaten in a fight, and similar. To terminate with prejudice generally means to end one's employment without possibility of rehire (as opposed to lay off, where the person can expect rehire if business picks up), but the related term to terminate with extreme prejudice now usually means to kill. The adjective extreme may occasionally be omitted. In a famous line from the movie Apocalypse Now, Captain Willard is told to terminate Colonel Kurtz's commission "with extreme prejudice". An acronym, TWEP has been coined from this phrase, which can be used as a verb: "He was TWEPed/TWEPped." The Dead Parrot Sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus contains an extensive list of euphemisms for death, referring to the deceased parrot that the character played by John Cleese had purchased. The popularity of the sketch has itself increased the popularity of some of these euphemisms indeed, it has introduced another euphemism for death, "pining for the fjords" although in the sketch that phrase was used by the shop owner to assert that the parrot was not dead, but was merely quiet and contemplative. A similar passage occurs near the beginning of The Twelve Chairs, where Bezenchuk, the undertaker, astonishes Vorobyaninov with his classification of people by the euphemisms used to speak of their deaths. The game Dungeon Siege contains many euphemisms for death as well. Also, a scene in the film Patch Adams features Patch (Robin Williams) dressed in an angel costume, reading out various synonyms and euphemisms for the phrase "to die" to a man dying of cancer. This evolves into a contest between the two men to see who can come up with more, and better, euphemisms, ending when Patch comes up with "and if we bury you ass up, we'll have a place to park my bike." (This is actually an old Danish joke used about the people from rhus who, still according to popular humor, can also choose to be buried with their noses above the surface, in order for them to be used as electrical plugs.) The name of the village of Ban Grong Greng in Thailand is a euphemism for Death Village. It literally means the Village of the Dreaded Gong. It is so named because it is the home to Wat Grong Greng (temple of the dreaded gong) at which the burning of bodies at funerals is preceded by the beating of a gong.

Death ,Disease, Deformity and Suicide

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Since the Middle Ages, in westerners eyes, the Devil was a powerful killer, just like a gambling king who was ever victorious. The same as death, deformity was cloyed, so it will be beautified and neutralized . Suicide in English and American culture, was a kind of revolting that means the suicide has lost faith of Gods. Mankinds desire to forget the process of aging that leads inevitably to death is the source of a number of kind words that made the stages and roles of life seem more bearable. The motives for euphemizing death are in many ways similar to those for disguising our references to pregnancy and birth. The terms change and the euphemisms grow, but the evasion of the word death survives. Such as, the great reaper, the great leveler, to make ones final exist, to rest in ABRAHAMS BOSOM, somebody is gone (to his rest or to glory), somebody ceased to be, be no more, pass away, be departed from us, close ones life, close ones eyes, kick the bucket, breath ones last, give up the ghost, quit this world. Here we have close example such as: , , , , , , , . As we know the death one for everyone, the death never look what colour your eyes or what is your nationality. Death come for everyone. - , , , . In China, a king and a peasant have different death, which shows the strictly social estate system. But in English the Great leveler shows popes, kings, beggars and thieves alike must die, which reflects westerners pursuing equality. Maybe you wonder to rest in Abrahams bosom, which means, to be dead with Gods. This expression comes from Luke16:22, and it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angel into Abrahams bosom. The biblical phrase itself may have come from the ancient custom of the hosts permitting a dinner guest to recline against his chest. If you did not know the story, you could not understand the euphemism. There are more examples; to be in a bad way (badly ill), trouble (ill), stomach disorder (vomit/vomitus), mental (mental disorder), the Big C, , , ,(cancer), the inconvenienced (the disabled person), beauty spot (pockmarks), , , , , . to take the cowards way out. The word Mental reflected that people in English-speaking counties use more euphemisms for diseases. From the Eric Partridges essay, we can see that the developing of the word insanity: mad---crazy---insane---lunatic---mentally deranged---deranged---mental, and the people understand sympathizely and respect the deformity, because of their higher education. Besides the inconvenienced, there are the disabled, imperfect hearing (deaf), visually retarded (blind), mentally handicapped (dementia).

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Despite this reluctance to mention the subject of death, there are communicative situations in which one cannot evade the notions of death and dying. This is the case of obituaries, this work notices devoted to recording and announcing a death. Given the obvious need to refer to mortality, the seriousness of the situation and the formality which the printed page imposes, it is no surprise that obituary columns are a breeding ground for euphemistic words and expressions related to the taboo of death. As metaphorization constitutes a potent source for euphemistic reference (Casas Gomez 1986: 217-218, Warren 1992: 146-149) and a common device to cope with death (Goatly 1997: 159, Spton 1997), the focus in this part will be predominantly on the conceptual categorization of the metaphors for death and dying as a euphemistic resource within the frame of the well-known Metaphor Conceptual Theory initiated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). This seems to be a worthy concern, because while there is substantial body of literature on the cognitive value of figurative language, including relatively recent studies devoted to the metaphorical conceptualization of human mortality (Marin Arrese 1996, Sexton 1997, Bultnick 1998), not much scholarly ink has been spilled over conceptual metaphor as a purely euphemistic device, an approach followed by Chamizo Dominguez and Sanchez Benedito (2000: 101-133) and Crespo Fernandez (2006) concerning the taboo of sex. Thus, I attempt to gain an insight into the cognitive role of metaphorical euphemism as a resource to tone-down the taboo of death. The taboo of death and obituaries Death is, as Allan and Burridge (1991: 153) have argued, "a Fear-based taboo" in which different fears coexist, namely fear of the loss of loved ones, fear of the corruption of the body, fear of evil spirits and fear of what comes after death. The dread to look death full in the face is especially noteworthy in primitive societies in which the word associated with the taboo of death is believed to possess the same force as the taboo itself. In fact, for some Australian tribes the taboo of death imposes such serious verbal restrictions that it is strictly forbidden to pronounce the name of someone who has died (Gross 1985: 203); they even avoid words rhyming with the name of the deceased (Sanchez Mateo 1996: 47)1. In such cases, the word associated with death is believed to possess magical powers which provide the term with the same force as the taboo. In this respect, such figures as Ullmann, Coseriu, Grimes and Tespersen (cited in Casas Gomez 1986: 21) have stressed the magical connection between the term and the concept ("the name for death is death"). So it seems that, when dealing with linguistic taboos, the boundaries between the linguistic sign and its referent are certainly fuzzy.
1

Lillo Buades (1995: 28-29) deals with the role of rhyme in the taboo of death for primitive societies.

29

Therefore, the euphemistic alternative does not always mitigate the taboo, as happens in certain communicative situations in which the allusion to death is, regardless of the degree of indirectness or vagueness employed, utterly unacceptable. This is so because in the very act of alluding indirectly to the unmentionable concept, the euphemistic substitute calls it to mind. On these occasions, the only effective way to ameliorate the taboo is silence, which constitutes an evident proof of the interdictive strength of the taboo.3 Thus, silence sometimes coexists with paralinguistic elements with the purpose of avoiding the taboo words death and die. Indeed, a set gesture can be used to refer to death, as is the case of the traditional Chinese manner of clenching the hands and throwing the head slightly back (Gross 1985: 204). This is also applicable to the taboo of sex, as Crespo Fernandez (2005: 385-386) has demonstrated in Victorian England, when this taboo proved to be stronger than any verbal mitigation. For this reason, the sexual taboo was generally silenced in public discourse. The taboo of death cannot be properly understood without considering the crucial role that religion played in sepulchral matters. In the religion was generally thought to provide a reason not only for living, but also for dying. In fact, people were obsessed with the subject of death and took for granted that religious practices and funerary rituals greatly contributed to ease the transition from life to death. In this sense, consolation was based on the Christian hope of the resurrection of the dead, a belief that meant taking on a completely new existence in Heaven, that blessed destination which represented the fulfilment of their Christian faith (Wheeler 1994: 6-13). Hence, religious beliefs provided some sort of relief in the face of death, particularly the promise of an eternal life beyond physical death, a hope which constituted the basis of sound doctrine and determined much of the metaphorical euphemism employed in obituaries, as I will explain further on. I cannot go any further without attempting to define the concept of obituary and establishing its types and linguistic properties. The term obituary is a euphemism in itself. It comes from Latin obitus 'departure', a common euphemistic term for death. The meaning the word has nowadays ("a record or announcement of a death or deaths, especially in a newspaper; usually comprising a brief biographical sketch of the deceased". Obituaries, it should be noted, go beyond the limits of a mere announcement of a demise; rather, they constitute a proof of mankind's failure to face mortality. These funeral notices are far from being homogeneous, and it is precisely in their variety where much of their richness lies. As Hernando (2001) has argued, obituaries constitute a hybrid genre in which both publicity and information coexist, in which emotion and objectivity go hand in hand. In this way, there are two types of obituaries: those more informative and objective, usually limited to the exposition of facts about the death, the deceased or the place and time of the funeral, and those, supposedly more personal and intimate, used with a social or religious purpose, in which
30

the feelings and emotions of the writer play a significant role. The characteristics of both types of obituaries are indicated below: Figure 1. Informative and opinative obituaries The above figure clearly shows the radically different characteristics of informative and opinative obituaries. The former are objective and rely on an impersonal language devoted to perform a locutionary function, that of transmitting the relevant details of a demise. Nonetheless, opinative obituaries present a subjective nature and, by means of an emotive and figurative language, perform a perlocutionary function, that is, they areoriented towards causing a favourable impression on the reader by showing the social relevance, exemplary conduct or religious fervour of the deceased. Before moving to the theoretical framework on which the paper relies, it is appropriate to consider the peculiarities of English. The standard variety of English was at the head of the linguistic hierarchy was generally employed in the full range of public domains (Harris 1991: 38-39). Thus, non-standard varieties were totally unacceptable and deemed impolite linguistic behaviour, especially in formal institutional contexts. Blake (1998: 288) puts the point in the following way: "People who spoke in non-standard varieties could never be accepted as fully developed human beings with a fine sense of morality and proper behaviour". Accordingly, the language of obituaries in Irish newspapers tended to follow the standard British English, whose written model was generally adopted in Ireland by the vast majority of the population2. Theoretical assumptions: the cognitive tradition The theoretical assumptions on which the present paper is based are derived from the cognitive model of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. This approach claims that metaphors go beyond pointing to the similarities between entities or embellishing a given object; rather, they stand as a means of creating, organizing and understanding reality. In order to reify abstract elements, language users tend to relate them to our social and bodily experiences with the help of figurative (metaphorical and metonymic) language by means of which we are able to conceptualize those abstract concepts. From this standpoint, following Lakoff (1993: 203), a metaphor can be defined as "a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system"; in other words, a set of conceptual correspondences from a source domain (the realm of the physical or more concrete reality) to a target domain (the death taboo, in our case). A metaphorical mapping
2

During the nineteenth century, Irish was in decline because of several factors such as the introduction of English as the language of education, its adoption by both the nationalist movement and the Roman Catholic Church and the emigration of a considerable part of the Irish-speaking population. Thus, the English used in Victorian Ireland was virtually indistinguishable from that of standard British English, with the exception of a few items of vocabulary borrowed from Irish to refer to local customs and institutions such as dail 'parliament' and taoiseach 'prime minister' (Harris 1991: 38-39).

31

presents submappings or ontological correspondences between the source and target domains as a result of reasoning about the latter using the knowledge we have about the former. Within the cognitive tradition, metaphor is thus understood as a device with the capacity to structure our conceptual system, providing, at the same time, a particular understanding of the world and a way to make sense of our experience. Hence, the metaphor is, rather than a linguistic expression or a figure of speech with an aesthetic value, a mode of thought and reason: The metaphor is not just a matter of language, but of thought and reason. The language is secondary. The mapping is primary, in that it sanctions the use of source domain language and inference patterns for target domain concepts. (Lakoff 1993: 208) Take the conceptual metaphor TO
DIE IS TO SLEEP.

There is a projection from a source

domain (sleep) onto a target domain (die) and the associations that constitute this metaphor map our perception about sleep onto our perception about death. It is in this correspondence between the source and the target domains where cognitive conceptualization fulfils its euphemistic function. The source domain is therefore used to understand, structure and, in some cases, mitigate the target domain. This implies one of the basic aspects of the standard cognitive approach, the principle of unidirectionality, according to which the associative process goes from the more abstract concept to the more concrete reality. That this is so can be gathered from Barcelona (2003b: 214): According to the standard cognitive theory of metaphor and metonymy (CTMM), mapping in metaphor is always unidirectional: only the source is projected onto the target domain, and the target domain is not at the same time mapped onto the source domain. Therefore, simultaneous bidirectional metaphorical projections do not exist in this theory. As conceptual and metonymic metaphors are grounded in our bodily and social experiences, there exist kinesthetic image-schemas into which our experience is organized, that is, recurring structures coming from our perceptions and bodily functioning (Johnson 1987, Lakoff 1987: 271278). In fact, everything we do is located in a point of time and space, which provides a metaphorical basis for its linguistic expression. Thus, apart from conceptual mappings, there are also image mappings by means of which to talk about abstract concepts. Viewed this way, our daily experiences can be understood in terms of experiental blocks (containers, links, forces, paths, frontback, center-periphery, etc.) consisting of structural elements which permit us to deal with abstract concepts in particular terms. Though it is not within the scope of this paper to describe metonymy in detail, I will briefly deal with this device of figurative language which coexists and interacts with metaphor in the conceptualization of abstract concepts. Both processes are so closely connected that a large number of conceptual metaphors have a metonymic basis (troatly 1997: 57, Bultnick 1998: 62-72,
32

Barcelona 2003a and 2003b: 241-246). In this sense, Kovecses (2000: 38), significantly enough, argues that certain metonymies can be considered as "metaphorical metonymies", a label which accounts for the interaction between metaphor and metonymy. The main difference between both devices, though, lies in the fact that conceptual metonymies do not involve two domains, one of which is more abstract than the other, as is the case with conceptual metaphors; rather, they operate within a single domain in which an aspect of a concept stands for the whole or for another aspect of it. As Kovecses (2000: 5) puts it, "metonymy, unlike metaphor, is a "stand-for" relation (i.e., a part stands for the whole or a part stands for another part) within a single domain". Data and methods The corpus samples 228 obituaries excerpted from the funeral sections of the Irish newspapers The Connaught Journal (1840) and The Cork Examiner (1847), which henceforth will be referred to as TCJ and TCE respectively. As mentioned before, the choice for obituaries as the source of empirical data for this article is based on the fact that obituary columns are a breeding ground for euphemism related to the taboo of death. I decided that it was interesting to focus on some authentic data, avoiding thus an approach to the metaphorical language of death with examples constructed by the author (Marin Arrese 1996) or excerpted from lexicographic sources (Bultnick 1998). In an attempt to minimize variables, the newspapers selected for this study belong to the same historical period ,within this period, to the same decade (1840s) and both were potentially addressed to a spectrum of provincial Irish readers (from Galway and Cork, to be precise). As it seems to be a consensus that the Victorian period was especially prone to the creation of euphemisms (Rawson 1995: 7-8, Howard 1986: 109-111), I expected that the spread of evasive language for the taboo of death would not be unusual at that age. Furthermore, .the nineteenth century saw a strong sense of religious spirituality attached to death (Wheeler 1994, Jalland 1999), which should obviously favour a down-toning language. In this respect, Rawson (1995: 8) talks about a "sentimentalization of death" in Victorian times as an attitude which tended to avoid a straightforward reference to the taboo. The choice for Ireland was not at random either. I considered that the study of the verbal mitigation in Irish death notices could complement previous works which touched on the issue of euphemisms in obituaries in England (Gross 1985: 214-215), Australia (Allan and Burridge 1991: 161-164) and the United States (Hume 2000).3 As for the methods employed, I searched the Irish newspapers in their entirety for euphemistic substitutions of the taboos of death and dying on their obituary pages. In order to organize the wide variety of euphemisms that existed, once I detected a euphemistic substitute, I
3

Of particular interest is the study carried out by Hume (2000), who surveys more than 8,000 newspaper obituaries of New York City, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago and San Francisco from 1818 to 1930.

33

assigned it to its corresponding linguistic level(s) according to its method of formation. Regarding metaphors, I included them in their conceptual mapping following the model of Cognitive Linguistics. Euphemism and the metaphorical conceptualization of death Euphemistic words and expressions related to the taboo of death abound in the obituary pages consulted. In fact, out of a total of 228 obituaries, I have collected 119 euphemistic substitutes for the taboos of death and dying, whereas the "forbidden" words death and die have only appeared 33 times. The force of the death taboo is also seen in the 58 obituaries in which all allusion to mortality is avoided in the corpus. The linguistic mechanisms employed to substitute the taboos of death and dying in the obituaries consulted are shown in quantitative terms in the table below in the semantic, lexical and morphological levels4: Euphemistic devices in obituaries Before going to the metaphorical conceptualizations of death found in the obituaries, which constitutes the primary focus of this paper, I will briefly describe the devices used to mitigate the taboo of death, as euphemism is not restricted to metaphor on the obituary columns consulted, as shown in the table above. As regards the semantic devices, metonymy is responsible for seven euphemistic references to mortality. There are two groups of metonymic associations in the obituaries consulted: first, those which focus on the result of death for those left alive, which constitute instances of the conceptual metonymy
THE SENTIMENTAL EFFECTS OF DEATH STAND FOR

DEATH {dissolution, void and

THE

separation); second, those which stress the final moment under the metonymic principle
PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS

OF DEATH STAND FOR DEATH5 {breathe one's last breath and put a is A and IS A

period to one's earthly sufferings). In addition, some conceptual metaphors encountered in the corpus present a metonymic basis. This is the case of
DEATH REWARD DEATH LOSS

which,. though intrinsically metaphorical in nature, and considered as such in the present paper, enable us to understand a metaphor for death via its cause and effect. Also within the semantic resources, the euphemistic hyperbole (4), i.e., a device which fulfils its mitigating function by considerably upgrading a desirable feature of the referent, aims not only at complimenting the deceased, but also at praising and magnifying the biological act of dying by means of overstatements based on Christian beliefs. In this sense, far from having simply died, the deceased is said to be in a kingdom, in Heaven or enjoying a
4

The classification proposed in the table is the result.of a method for collecting euphemisms according to a set of phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical and semantic devices which I used in a previous study (Crespo Fernandez to appear). Here, I have only included those linguistic levels which are responsible for the creation of euphemistic substitutes in the obituaries consulted. This classification of euphemisms is based on those offered by Casas Gomez (1986) and Warren (1992). 5 Concerning conceptual metaphors and metonymies on the basis of our experience of the physiological effects of death, see Marin Arrese (1996: 40-41) and Bultnick (1998: 27-30).

34

holy and uninterrupted communion with God, something which, from the Christian point of view, supposes the fulfilment of happiness. It is worthy of note that some metaphors present hyperbolic overtones, like world of unending glory or eternity of happiness 'death'. Other semantic mechanisms employed are the use of generic terms (7) such as concern and event and circumlocutions (3) like go where care or pain can reach her no more 'die'. Also of interest is the reversal with a metaphorical origin eternal life in Heaven, which bases its euphemistic force on the opposition life against death6. The obituary writer also resorted to lexical devices of euphemism formation, for example to a shift in the stylistic level to cope with the taboo by means of technical terms (12). Indeed, death is substituted by decease (7) and demise (5), legal terms which fulfil a mitigating function when used in a nonlegal context like that of the obituary. In this respect, the dead person is the deceased or the lamented deceased. The stylistic shift commented also takes place in the learned word expire, repeated three times. The conceptual mappings of consolatory metaphors Given that poetic and connotative metaphors were commonplace in nineteenth century obituaries, it is hardly surprising that over a half of the funeral notices collected (to be precise, 120 out of 228) fall under the category of opinative obituaries. After all, the greater or lesser degree of subjectivity in death recordings is mainly due to external factors closely linked to the sociocultural norms of each historical period,10 and over-sentimentalization provided a fertile soil for the development of sentimental obituaries. Accordingly, purely informative death notices, with the aim of reporting the necessary details concerning the death and the deceased by means of an impersonal language and a concise expression, like the one offered below, were not very representative of Victorian social and religious attitudes to mortality: At Pusey, on the 8th ult., of scarlet fever, Henry Algernon Herbert, second son of the Hon. Edward Herbert, in the eighth year of his age. (TCE, March 3)7 Within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics, the metaphors observed in the obituaries collected can be analysed in terms of the cognitive mappings to which they may be assigned. This provides significant information concerning the way in which the taboo of death was actually used, perceived and, what is more important for the aim of this paper, mitigated. I have found six conceptual mappings for the consolatory metaphors excerpted from the obituaries:
JOURNEY DEATH IS A

(14 different metaphors), DEATH is JOYFUL LIFE (13), DEATH IS A REST (6), DEATH IS A

This seems to prove that, as Warren (1992) demonstrated, it is natural for hyperboles to be combined with devices of semantic change.
7

It is worth noting that all the obituaries for children collected for the present research are informative. As for the treatment of the death in children in Victorian times, see Wheeler (1994: 46-50).

35

REWARD (6), DEATH IS THE END (5) and DEATH IS A LOSS (2). It must be noted that the majority of metaphors view death as a positive event, as a sort of reward in Heaven after a, virtuous life on earth. In fact, by virtue of their cognitive support, and under the influence of religion faith, four out of the six conceptual metaphors pointed out conceptualize the domain of death in terms of a domain with positive connotations, namely as a joyful life, a journey, a rest and a reward. There are only two sets of correspondences in which death is portrayed negatively: a loss and the end. Accordingly, most of the conceptualizations in my corpus imply a positive value-judgement of death. In this respect, it is interesting to note how the positive or negative value-judgement in the death-related mappings depends, as SimonVandenbergen (cited in Bultnick 1998: 84) has argued, on the nature of the source domain. Indeed, it seems evident that a joyful life, a journey, a rest and a reward are concepts with positive connotations. The graph below displays the MOVEMENT, DEATH AS DOWNWARD MOVEMENT, DEATH AS SLEEP, DEATH AS LOSS, DEATH AS SURRENDER, DEATH AS LIGHT GONE OUT and DEATH AS END-POINT. In addition, this author studied the conceptual basis of expressions related to the physiological effects of death, to the feelings concerning the dead and to religion, mythology and "folk-stories". The conceptual metaphor A
DEATH IS A JOURNEY

(26 substitutions) is the most relevant from a (6) and (6) are the least

quantitative point of view, followed by DEATH IS A LOSS (17), DEATH is A JOYFUL LIFE (15) and DEATH is
REST

(10), whereas the associations

DEATH IS A REWARD

DEATH IS THE END

frequent. In what follows, I will attempt to clarify how the source domains shown in figure 2 (a journey, a loss, a joyful life, a rest, a reward and the end) are actually applied to target euphemistically the taboo concepts of death and dying. To this end, I will first deal with those conceptualizations that refer to the larger number of metaphorical substitutes in the corpus data. Death is a journey The conceptual metaphor which understands death in terms of a journey with a spiritual destination is the most relevant in quantitative terms. It is, in fact, the source of 26 consolatory metaphors in the funeral notices analysed, which makes up 32% of the total number of the metaphors found. By virtue of this conceptualization, based on the trivial assumption that the dead person is no longer around, as Bultnick (1998: 31) points out, human mortality is conceptualized as a departure from this world in which a basic domain of experience like death is understood in terms of a different and more concrete domain, as a journey, an association which provides the basis for the verbal mitigation of the taboo. This metaphorical mapping transfers different attributes from the source domain of a journey to the target domain of death. More specifically, it presents different sets of
36

conceptual correspondences as a result of using the knowledge we have about journeys to talk about the taboo of death: first, the act of dying corresponds to the act of leaving; second, the destination of the journey is an encounter with God in Heaven; third, the dying person is the one that embarks on the journey. Though the nature of the source domain is radically different from that of the target domain, the immediate understanding of the euphemistic reference to death on the part of the reader is a consequence of the'fact that these conceptual correspondences are already part of the receiver's cognitive system (cf. Lakoff 1993: 210). This is mostly so because the religious background of the nineteenth century reader shapes the knowledge of journeys in religious terms, similar to what happens with the domains of a joyful life and a reward. In what follows, I will attempt to clarify how the submappings just mentioned are used to target euphemistically the experiential domain of death. In the metaphors which respond to this conceptual association, the act of dying corresponds to the act of leaving and, consequently, the deceased is obviously the person who embarks on the journey. The vast majority of the metaphorical substitutes observed (depart!departure together with their variants depart this life and departure out of this world leave, pass from the sorrows of Earth - , , etc.) focus on the act of leaving, on the journey itself, rather than on its conclusion. The final destination of the journey, that is, the encounter with God in Heaven, is based on the religion of Cristian belief of a joyful meeting with the Saviour, a notion which provides the euphemistic support of expressions such as draw to God and go to one's eternal rest. In a Kyrgyz language we have such exsamples but a little different, in muslim religion the assurance never used, as we dont know who will be with God and who will not. ( - - - ) Curiously enough, the metaphor pass away, an old euphemism favoured by Victorian sentimentality which assurance dates back to the fourteenth century (Rawson 1995: 309), has not been encountered on the obituary pages consulted. The two examples that follow illustrate the conceptual correspondences in the DEATH-IS-A-JOURNEY mapping discussed so far: the journey in (2) by means of departed this life and its heavenly destination in (3) with gone to eternal rest: The Earl of Enniskillen departed this life at his residence Florence Court, county of Fermanagh, on Tuesday morning last. (TCJ, April 16)8 They will only find consolation in contemplating [...] that their darling has gone to her eternal rest... (TCJ, February 27) Some death-related expressions with the verb leave tend to emphasize the role of the survivors rather than the death itself. This is the case of the following obituary, in which the
8

Hereafter, the terms and expressions that I want to highlight in the obituaries offered as examples will appear in italics.

37

expression "has left two interesting children" clearly focus on the survivors of the oAe that has embarked on a journey: (4) Suddenly, Monday morning, at her residence, Fermoy, Mrs. Julia Desmond. She has left two interesting children to mourn the loss of a fond and tender parent. (TCE, March 17) In the journey-metaphor the deceased corresponds to the person that has been capable of embarking on the journey. The dying person is thus supposed to have moved and, for this reason, considered to be somehow alive9. That this is so can be gathered from the ways in which the deceased is verbalized {departed, departing child, departed spirit and departed youth) and in the use of verbs of motion {depart, go, leave and pass). By denying the total cessation of bodily movement as an intrinsic attribute of death, these metaphors do imply a negation of death as well. It is in this view of the deceased as an alive being that these metaphors fulfil their euphemistic function. This conceptualization has again its origin in a religious belief, that of an afterlife beyond death where the soul will live forever in God. There are, however, some metaphors in which the dying person is not conceptualized as an alive being somehow capable of acting as such; rather, in some obituaries the journey is seen as the result of an action performed by some external agent, someone who helps to bring about departure (Lakoff 1993: 232), like Providence ("It has pleased Providence to bestow upon him the rewards of his pious life", TCJ, February 13) and God16 ("the man just called by the will of the Almighty before his throne of mercy", TCE, January 1) in three cases each (see appendix). The journey may also be motivated by an unknown force, as in be carried off in the prime of life (TCJ, April 16) and be cut away in the bloom of life (TCJ, November 4). These two phrases are instances l of a conceptualization in which death is viewed as an adversary, as a cruel enemy which can destroy us (Marin Arrese 1996: 43). Therefore, from this standpoint, the two cases just mentioned can be said to convey a dysphemistic approach to death, rather than a euphemistic one, given the unfavourable connotations that these phrases transmit. This stands as a proof of how euphemism and its opposite dysphemism do not always form clear-cut categories; in fact, particular references to taboo topics display degrees of membership to one category or the other depending on contextual and pragmatic considerations which are beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say, as Allan and Burridge (1991: 28) point out, that "[l]ike euphemism, dysphemism is not necessarily a property of the word itself, but of the way it is used".
9

The importance of the concept of movement in this cognitive mapping is out of doubt. In fact, according to Bultnick (1998: 34-38), the conceptual metaphor DEATH AS A JOURNEY is a subdivision of the more general conceptualization DEATH AS MOVEMENT.

38

Death is a loss The domain of death is understood in terms of the domain of loss in 20% of the metaphors detected. This cognitive association has a metonymic basis (THE
STAND FOR DEATH ) EFFECTS OF DEATH

which focuses on the negative results of death. Following Bultnick (1998:

44-45), the conceptual basis of this mapping lies in the fact that life is perceived as a valuable object and death is thus seen as the loss of this possession. Therefore, contrary to what happens in the majority of the conceptual mappings observed in the obituaries, the metaphorical substitutes arising from this figurative association cannot be said to provide any sort of consolation or relief. In fact, as Allan and Burridge (1991: 162) maintain, the conceptual metaphor of death as loss evokes death as "malign fate", as an event that human beings cannot control, leaving them powerless in the face of the unavoidable event. Euphemistic alternatives like loss (by far, the most employed euphemism in this domain with 13 occurrences) and bereavement fall under this cognitive equation. In the following obituary the conceptual mapping is the source of the euphemistic substitution: (5) [...] his loss to society will be long and deeply felt, and the sympathy of his friends is now the only balm that we can pour on the bosom of his mourning family, with which a sense of religion can alone sustain them under the bereavement. (TCJ, June 18) In Kyrgyz customs we use: , , , , , . Granted that death is conceptualized as a loss, those who are left alive will regret and lament the loss. In fact, both regret and lament are terms commonly found on the obituary pages to stress the grief experienced by the relatives and closest friends of the deceased. Take the two death notices below: At his lodgings, Cove, on Saturday the 3d inst., John Daniel Harnett, Esq., of Laurel Hill, Blarney, deeply regretted by his family and friends. (TCE, April 7) The Right Hon. The Earl of Mountcashell, who was on friendly intercourse and intimacy with the lamented deceased. (TCJ, October 1) In (6) and (7) the dying person is absent in the conceptualization, given the fact that the edparticiples lamented and regretted emphasize the role of the survivors rather than focusing on the person that dies. The shift of focus from the deceased to those left alive also takes place in certain uses of the verb leave, as seen in Further, in these two obituaries, not only a direct reference to the subject of death is avoided, but also any euphemistic alternative. This seems to prove the mitigating effectiveness of silence.
39
DEATH-AS-LOSS

Death is a joyful life The Christian ideal of a joyful life, that is, a peaceful and everlasting existence with God in Heaven, is used to conceptualize death euphemistically in 19% of the metaphorical substitutes. This conceptual metaphor is based on one of the main principles in the JudaeoChristian tradition: the belief in an afterlife in which the deceased will joyfully expect the resurrection in Heaven flanked by God and the celestial angels. This cognitive mapping transfers the attributes from the domain of a joyful life to the domain of death. In this regard, the metaphors of hope and consolation found in the obituaries that arise from this conceptual association, such as abode of peace, better world, joyful expectation of the resurrection of the just, happiness, etc., present positive overtones to ameliorate the death taboo. Death is even verbalized in this mapping by means of the hyperbolic metaphor holy and uninterrupted communion with God, in reference to the ideal state for Christian faith. More specifically, this metaphorical phrase is a clear example of the metaphor
DEATH IS ETERNAL LIFE

proposed by Marin Arrese (1996: 44). In fact, under the belief in the resurrection of the dead on which the conceptual equation relies, this conceptual metaphor which understands death as an eternal life is but a projection of the
DEATH-IS-A-JOYFUL LIFE

metaphor considered here. The

euphemistic sense of the source domain in all the metaphorical expressions proposed in this mapping is understood instantly, given the marked tendency of the Christian faith to reason about death, as is the case in the DEATH-IS-A-JOURNEY metaphor, commented in. Due to the fact that the taboo domain of death is seen in terms of the domain of joy, life is viewed in negative terms. This conceptualization is reflected in metaphors like lower scene, scene of wretchedness and anxiety and earthly care, among others, which can be included in the conceptual mapping LIFE is MISERY. A representative example is the obituary below in which religion inspired a positive view of death {eternal rest, abode of peace) and a negative view of earthly life (scene of wretchedness): (8) They will only find that consolation in contemplating the purity and virtues of the being that has left them - [...] in the pious and firmly grounded hope, that their darling has gone to the eternal rest - and that in the fullness of time, when it shall please God to call them from that scene of wretchedness, they will join her in that abode of peace, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. (TCJ, November 27) Of particular interest is the substitute for the verb die as close existence on this side of the grave in the obituary below in which both life and death are conceptualized as a grave:10

10

As an anonymous referee correctly observes, the grave could also be viewed as a bridge between life and death.

40

(9) At Ballygar Lodge, on the 5th instant, the Rev. John KYNE, R.C.C, brother to Mr. KYNE, Merchant of this town. The pious, zealous, and exemplary Ecclesiastic closed existence on this side of the grave, by a malignant Fever,19 which he caught in the discharge of those consoling rites of religion, with which the Catholic Church assuages the last agonies of her departing children, and prepares them for the Joys of a better world. (TCJ, February 13) In this respect, there is a change of focus from life to death, in which the latter is paradoxically viewed as an ideal state for the deceased with the aim of providing some sort of consolation to those left alive.20 It is interesting to note that this conceptual association is especially common in the death notices of those who devoted their lives to religion. A good case in point is (9), in which the obituarist understands the transifionTfrom life to death as a passage from misery {last agonies) into happiness (Joys of a better world). Death is a rest Closely associated with the view of death as a desirable condition, I have found 10 metaphors (13% of the metaphorical euphemisms detected) which betray a conceptualization of death in terms of a peaceful rest after an earthly existence. Thus, all these metaphors show a positive judgement of death. The most frequent term in this mapping is rest, observed in phrases such as eternal rest, rest in Him and rest in peace, together with the more elaborate euphemisms rest from the labours of a well spent life and rest on the merits of one's Saviour, , , , as shown in the appendix. Furthermore, rest appears in the well-known formula rest in peace (together with its Latin equivalent requiescere in pace and its acronym R.I.P.) and is likewise the source of euphemistic substitutions such as resting place 'grave'. Within this conceptual metaphor, I have also included repose and sleep in the expression fall asleep in Christ, in which a rest could easily resemble a gentle falling asleep. The underlying notion of all the metaphors included in this mapping is based on the fact that a rest, a repose or a sleep are temporary, and therefore, death is also conceptualized as a temporary event. This analogy implies that the cessation of bodily functions and speech are not automatically identified with the symptoms of physical death, as they are also present in a peaceful sleep. The conceptualization which relates death to a rest or a sleep provides an effective euphemistic reference to the taboo mainly because this association ultimately leads to the denial of death as such: the dying person is no longer dead, but sunk in a comforting sleep. In addition to this, within this conceptual metaphor, death is thought to provide some sort of relief for the dying person, a notion on which the euphemistic force of this mapping is also based. Consider the following obituary:

41

(10) The Right Hon. William Gregory, for many year Under Secretary of State in Ireland, has paid the debt of nature. Full of years and of honours, his grey hairs have descended to the grave, and in the joyful expectation of the resurrection of the just, he rests from the labours of a well spent life. (TCJ, April 16) In the death notice above, the relief is expressed in terms of a rest "from the labours of a well spent life". In this sense, the association between a death and a rest is closely connected to the
DEATH-IS-A-REWARD

metaphor that I will analyse under the next heading.

Death is a reward The domain of death is understood in terms of a reward for those virtuous human beings who have led exemplary lives in 8% of the metaphors found in the funeral notices consulted. Death is conceptualized as an event which, far from being fearful or harmful, involves a sort of liberation thanks to which the deceased and his or her survivors will find some hope and consolation. This conceptual mapping is built on a metonymy as it understands death via one of its effects, the same as the
DEATH-IS-A-LOSS

conceptual metaphor seen above. However, the

DEATH-IS-A-REWARD

cognitive association adopts a diametrically opposed perspective, since the metaphorical euphemism is based on the positive effects of death as a means for relief. The knowledge of what constitutes a rewartTpermits the obituarist to refer to death euphemistically. In this regard, I have observed two sets of conceptual correspondences in the obituaries consulted: the act of dying is a religious reward and the act of dying is a reward after a virtuous life on earth. In the first case, the Christian belief in a meeting with God in Heaven constitutes the source of the reward and is therefore used to mitigate the target domain of death. As a result of this analogy, death is verbalized as a reward for someone in Heaven or as a blissful reward in the world of unending glory. In the second submapping, the death is figuratively associated with a reward achieved by moral discipline after a life full of good deeds, as in the metaphor enjoyment of the fruits of a well spent life. This is also the case of the expression enjoyment of that peace and bliss that await the virtuous and the good in the following death notice that focuses on the virtuous earthly life of the deceased: (11) The unostentatious piety of her life, the charity and the domestic virtues which she invariably practiced give an assurance that she is now in the enjoyment of that peace and bliss that await the virtuous and the good. (TC J, November 9) Death is the end By virtue of the
SOURCE-PATH-GOAL

schema into which our everyday experience may be

organized, life can be understood as a process with a starting, an end point and a time span. As Lakoff (1987: 275) puts it,

42

[c]omplex events in general are also understood in terms of a source-path-goal schema; complex events have initial states (source), a sequence of intermediate stages (path) and a final state (destination). From this perspective, death is conceptualized as the final stage of our lifespan by means of the image mapping DEATH IS THE END, which provides the basis for understanding and mitigating death and dying in 8% of the euphemistic terms and phrases. The most obvious case in this conceptualization is end. In the example that follows, death is viewed as the end of the process of human life: (12) On Monday morning, the 15th inst., at eight o'clock, Mr. John O'Sullivan, grocer, of No. 2, Great George's-street, after a severe illness of six month's duration; leaving a widow and five young children to deplore his ultimately end. (TCE, March 17) Furthermore, expressions containing the adjective last such as last struggling moments of existence and last agonies also belong to this cognitive network in the sense that they help to understand human death in terms of finality (cf. Bultnick 1998: 59). In this sense, metonymic expressions related to the physiological effects of death like breathe one's last breath and put a period to one's earthly sufferings can be considered to present the same metaphorical basis, in another proof of the interaction between metaphor and metonymy in the conceptualization of abstract concepts, as seen earlier. The DEATH-IS-THE-END mapping has the implication that death is seen as the final debt one must pay just before leaving earthly existence as part of the concluding phase of a sort of economic transaction, as Ayto (cited in Marin Arrese 1996: 46) argues. This principle applies in the metaphorical expression pay the debt of nature in (10), where the euphemistic reference to death is the result of mapping the knowledge about that last moment (the need to settle one's accounts before leaving) onto knowledge about death. Results and concluding remarks The sentimentalization of death so characteristic of Victorian times provided a fertile soil for the flowering of metaphorical euphemistic language to conceptualize and verbalize the taboo of death. Indeed, there was a tendency to present elaborate and sentimental obituaries which commonly supposed exaggerated displays of grief and were supported by a considerable amount of poetic metaphors aiming at providing some sort of relief in the face of death. The great frequency of metaphorization proves that this device fits the purpose of euphemism particularly well. In fact, I have found 80 metaphorical euphemisms out of a total of 119 euphemistic alternatives for the notions of death and dying. This proliferation of metaphorical euphemism seems to confirm the nineteenth-century attitude towards this taboo pointed out by Brown (cited in Rawson 1995: 309):
43

During the eighteenth century, according to my churchyard observation, people were allowed, quite simply, to die. [...] But about the year 1830 everything goes... Simplicity 11vanishes as well as the stately and sonorous rhythm. People no longer die, like Adam: they pass over, they go home, they are carried to rest, they fall asleep [...]. Anything but the plain fact of death. Despite the large quantity of euphemisms, down-toning words and expressions cannot always mitigate the taboo, however hard they try. Indeed, the force of the death taboo can be observed in the 158 obituaries in which all allusion to the taboo is left out. This seems to demonstrate that, as commented earlier, on certain occasions silence stands out as the most effective euphemism. Thus, in some funeral notices, like (13), the only death references are the past tense of the verb employed (bore) and the ed-participle regretted: (13) At his residence, Upper Rathmines, after a painful and protracted illness, which he bore with Christian resignation, Mr. George Walker, for many years Conducting Printer to the Messrs. Grierson, her Majesty's Printers, aged 45 years, deeply and deservedly regretted. (TCE, December 31) Following the Conceptual Metaphor Theory initiated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), I have observed a'Tich variety of conceptual associations in the euphemistic figurative language of the taboo of death in the obituaries consulted. In fact, this paper attests that the model of Cognitive Linguistics provides solid tools for understanding and analysing how the taboo of death and its mitigation were dealt with in print in early Victorian Ireland. From this standpoint, the metaphors collected map different kinds of conceptual mappings and image-schemas. I have analysed six conceptual categories into which the consolatory metaphorical terms and expressions substituting the notions of death and dying can be included:
DEATH IS A LOSS DEATH IS A JOURNEY

(32% of the consolatory metaphors observed),

(20%), DEATH IS A

JOYFUL LIFE (19%), DEATH IS A REST (13%), DEATH IS A REWARD (8 %) and

DEATH

is THE END (8%). In turn, these cognitive mappings entail further submappings or

ontological correspondences between the source and target domains. Many of the metaphors included in these mappings rely on religion beliefs. In this regard, most of the metaphorical language is based on the hope that those who have died will enjoy a better life in Heaven. In the same vein, religion also inspired a positive view of death and a negative view of earthly life. What emerges from the approach to death carried out in obituaries is that silence coexists with a euphemistic figurative language, mainly religious metaphors, to cope with the taboo of death. To a lesser extent, other semantic devices such as metonymies,
11

This sentimentality attached to death was also noticeable in the euphemistic poetic expressions collected by Pound (1936: 196-198) concerning the usage of American English in the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century.

44

generic terms and hyperboles, as well as lexical resources like learned terms, also play a significant role in the formation of euphemistic substitutes for the notions of death and dying. In addition to this, though beyond the research interest of the present paper, it is interesting to note that the k obituarist also resorts to direct references to the taboo the words death and died appear 30 and 6 times respectively- and allusions to death which present dysphemistic overtones.

45

2.2.Sexual Euphemism This part of work examines how very personal linguistic choices are actually products of societal mores and pressures. How people use euphemism to talk about sex is a direct reflection of these social concerns. In order to examine this sentiment in a diachronic methodology, examples of sexual euphemism are extracted from three British novels that span 180 years and two Kyrgyz writers works by: Chyngyz Aitmatov , Asandek Stamov, Jane Austen, D. H. Lawrence and Fiona Walker. Due to the nature of both pragmatics and euphemism, it is first necessary to put these euphemisms into their historical contexts before any real conclusions may be drawn. This requires consideration of the culture and expectations surrounding each novel and encompasses research from the fields of sociology, history and philosophy. euphemisms. This data provides the basis for the discussion. In studying euphemism formation, an existing model (Warren, 1992) is examined and the rules and categories suggested by this model are tested against euphemisms from the novels. It will be seen that improvements are required of the model in order for it to account for all examples. A modified version of this model is proposed to encompass all of these euphemisms, as well as other examples from notable sources. In the beginning was the Word. There followed, at an undetermined but one assumes decent interval, private, harsh, and dirty words. Invention here being the mother of necessity, the need for euphemism arose. Nowhere could this need have been greater, or more evident, than in the realm of sex (Epstein 1985:56). The subject of sex, being a major concern in human life and one that is likely to elicit embarrassment, is a potent source of euphemism for Western people of most ages and walks of life. It will be shown that this is also valid for the historical period discussed. Despite the claim of 'narrowing the focus', the boundaries of sexual euphemism are deceptively wide, encompassing the sexual act itself, associated body parts, and even 2 clothing that is in direct contact with these body parts, i.e. underwear (Nash, 1995) . In fact, if the size of the euphemism collection indicates the size of the taboo, as suggested by Rawson (1981), the area of sexual taboo is greater than any other. Allen and Burridge (1991:96) state "the degree of synonymy in the vocabulary for the genitalia and copulation has no parallel elsewhere in the lexicon - except in the terms for 'whore'." They state that there are approximately 1,200 terms for 'vagina', 1,000 for 'penis', 800 for 'copulation', and around 2,000 for 'whore'. These figures are reinforced by analysis of Shakespeare's vocabulary. In his
46

Only once the cultural

conditions have been established is it possible to begin extracting and examining the

plays, Shakespeare used 45 synonyms for 'penis', 68 for 'vagina' and an impressive 275 for 'copulation' (Partridge, 1968). This rash of synonyms indicates what Halliday (1978:165) terms "over-lexicalisation", a phenomenon that marks a problem area in the language. But vocabulary for body parts not so dispersed in Kyrgyz language. In our beliefs and customs we attend more delicacy to our terms, contact and communication between people. So Kyrgyz people use euphemisms wich have to do with sexual relation between people. The high turnover rate for sexual euphemisms, resulting in these vast numbers of expressions, could be a direct product of the semantic domain of which they are a part. It seems sex has become a great 'secret' (Giddens, 1992), necessitating its constant discussion and the subsequent creation of new euphemisms. The texts to be studied are Jane Austen's (1816) Emma, D. H. Lawrence's (1928) Lady Chatterly's Lover, and Fiona Walker's (1996) Well Groomed. In an attempt to minimise variables outside of those to be studied, the authors chosen are all British and the stories are of a similar genre, i.e. love/romance/sex. The two historical novels were selected on the basis of their popularity and accessibility to the average reader. The modern novel was chosen because of similarities in plot style to the works of Jane Austen, i.e. the series of misunderstandings between the main characters before the realisation that they were 'meant to be'. All three novels aim to represent the society of their day, which is crucial for the purpose of the current, pragmatic analysis. In order to find candidates for the analysis, the three novels were searched in their entirety for sexual euphemisms. This complete reading maximised numbers of examples found, and reduced the possibility of inconsistency and misrepresentation sometimes found in the use of extracts and sampling. Despite careful reading, this list of euphemisms should make no claim to being exhaustive due to the possibility of human error. Some entries may also be disputed because individual readers interpret euphemism differently. This is unavoidable. It should be remembered that this is just one example of an analysis, of which a variety of examples may be suggested. However, it is not the purpose here to list every euphemism but to investigate formation, so this issue need not be addressed further. Jane Austen's Emma It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen's novels are about courtship and marriage. But it is a truth almost as universally ignored that they are also very much about sex (Chandler 1975:88)12.
This view of Austen's novels is also shared by Halperin (1988), Cohn (1988) and Marie (1985) to name a few. The opposite view is expressed in such comments as: "the passions are perfectly unknown to her," Charlotte Bront; "There are worlds of passionate existence into which she has never set foot," George Henry Lewes, and other influential writers and critics quoted in McMaster (1987:37ff). Most agree, however, that Austen "controls her use [of sex] to fit her settings, to avoid offence and keep attention where she feels it belongs," (Smith, cited in Korba, 1997:139).
12

47

As Chandler suggests, modern readers of historical texts may form different impressions of a work than those of the author and their contemporaries. The first thing to consider when analysing historical texts is that the author was not writing for readers of the future and, therefore, such texts can not be judged by modern standards - especially in pragmatic studies. In the two hundred years since the publication of Emma, society has changed considerably, with one obvious difference being that "we do not live in an age of decorum. Austen did," (Stout, 1982:320). Consequently, an effort must be made to apply standards of the day, and to define authentic boundaries for the pragmatic context. In an attempt to establish what was acceptable between a man and a woman in middle-class society in the face of little evidence (cf. Fergus, 1981), researchers rely on the 'conduct books' of the time and the 'novels of manners' (cf. Preus, 1991), such as those of Jane Austen and her contemporaries: Imaginative writers are the most obviously powerful fist-hand authorities on the sensibilities of their own times, for the obvious reason that they were the sensibilities of their times (Gard 1992:116). It seems to be a consensus (cf. Chandler, 1975 and Preus, 1991) that the small, country societies of Jane Austen's novels were representative of the larger picture of British society at the turn of the nineteenth century: "Austen represents her elite group of country gentlefolk as one that adheres to domestic norms," (Armstrong, 1987:140). Such society presented strict social conventions, especially regarding interaction between the sexes and courtship. A man and woman were not ordinarily expected to be alone together; indeed this behaviour was sometimes seen as evidence of a secret engagement (Grey, 1986), which itself was morally suspect (Parkinson, 1988). Interaction was conducted in large groups and at parties or dances, the latter also being the only time that women and men usually made physical contact. Dances were, therefore, important in literature and the courtship procedure, i.e. the securing of both a dance and a life partner (T. Adams, 1982). That "Austen's characters succeed in expressing themselves not in spite of custom and convention, but through them," (McMaster, 1987:40) is of vital importance to this current study. It is evident from these conventions that to use the concept of sexual euphemism that exists today to Jane Austen's society would be both irrelevant and futile, "for sexual relations [were] declared by the slightest gesture, the briefest glance in such a communication situation," (Armstrong, 1987:144). So what definition can be applied? Anything outside the guidelines mentioned above would be improper, as would personal comments, especially negative ones (Armstrong, ibid.), as well as talk of feelings and terms of endearment (Epstein, 1985). This does not mean that these actions did not occur, however, and even in the polite works of Ms. Austen examples abound:

48

[Emma] imagines without compunction that Harriet's father's [sexual] conduct is venial because he is noble; that Jane is having an affair with her best friend's husband, Mr Dixon, and even that Mr Churchill may have several natural children who would inherit his estate ahead of Frank (Sabiston 1987:29). It is the guidelines in this section that are used to identify candidate sexual euphemisms contained within Emma. Jane Austen's Euphemisms What did she say? - Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does. Austen (1816:326) Jane Austen intended her characters to be representative of polite society in her time, i.e. the turn of the nineteenth century. It should be expected, therefore, that the spread of euphemisms in Emma (Table 1) would not be unusual in such context, and would - barring issues of personal style - represent the euphemisms in use, and the motivations behind them, approximately two hundred years ago. In this way, Austen "offers us far more than the surface of the lives of genteel English people," (McMaster, 1987:44). In turning to these euphemisms, the first noticeable thing is that the sexual relation in kyrgyz mentality very sensitive and delicate . 1770's and 'gosh' [god] from 1757 (Rawson, 1981), in her hour of need Emma adheres to the good, common oath "Good God!" (p. 301). There are also no examples of onomatopoeia or acronyms, which may be due to their relative obscurity, but that there are no Latin euphemisms is perhaps a little more surprising. However, when considering the terms Latin usually replaces, the mystery becomes clear. For example, 'genitalia' [sex-organs], 'vagina' [cunt], 'labia' [vaginal lips]: i.e. "use of Latin synonyms provides Standard English with euphemisms for bodily effluvia, sex and the associated acts and bodily organs," (Allen and Burridge, 1991:19). In short, it is unlikely that these referents would appear in any form in the works of Ms. Austen or, it may be supposed, within the dialogue of polite society in her time. In general, and breaking from practices of the previous century (cf. Morgan, 1987, and Morrison, 1994), it seems for Austen "the best pornographer is the mind of the reader, which in this matter required only the slightest assistance" (Epstein, 1985:64). The majority of Austen's euphemisms appear as particularisations, and implications. While this corresponds with numbers presented in her own study, Warren (1992:145) warns that these types of euphemism "are vague since the interpreter can only conclude from circumstantial evidence whether they are intended or not". This warning is especially valid when circumstances surrounding the euphemism are two hundred years old, and relatively inaccessible (Chandler, 1975). Understatement is a more obvious characteristic frequently
49

utilised in Austen's novels (cf. Stout, 1982, and McMaster, 1987), and this is reflected in the relatively large number of examples found. There is only one euphemism that does not fit into any of Warren's categories, and this will be discussed below. 129) and 'breast' (p. 328) that were euphemised soon after her time (Marsh, 1998), and that the words 'intercourse' and 'intimate' carry different connotations than today as 'fallen euphemisms'. The word 'gay' (p. 137) also maintains its innocent meaning as 'happy/lively'. Whether these practices continue through the next two hundred years will be seen in the following sections. Asanbek Stamovs Euphemisms: , ..(p. 13) ass man man that like a raw deal with a woman. , , . (p. 15) being sexually active a long time. , ...(p. 15) the first sexual contact (have to do with only man). In turning to these euphemisms, the first noticeable thing is that the sexual relation in kyrgyz mentality very sensitive and delicate . . , , . , ? Inspire smb. with passion. (p.21) Desire someone with passion, be sexually awaken. . - , ... (p. 17) a randy man. Aside from these euphemisms, it is interesting to note that Stamov uses several euphemisms for tabu word (breast): , , , ... , , ... ... ... , ? ,
50

, ? Here very interesting example of Kyrgyz delicacy to woman status is mean that woman already married. Although the number of metonyms is smaller, the euphemisms and referents in Stamovs work are surprisingly, which could be expected given the subject matter. . (p. 19) sexual contact. . , ! The activation of this category perhaps indicates that this style of euphemism formation is a quite recent language development, and it is probably employed more often in modern times. Chyngyz Aitmatovs Euphemisms: In Aitmatovs works especially in the The First Teacher was found euphemisms which were make an accent on the tradition of Kyrgyz people girls conserving their virginity. Here some examples: ... (p. 84) the meaning of this words denotes a fornication between woman and man. ! , ...(p. 85) denotes that the girl lost her verginity. ... , , . , , . (p. 85). Also in Kyrgyz language occurred such words like , , , all this words are denotes the importance of verginity. In considering the euphemisms within it is easier to apply the pragmatic context than with the historical novels, as boundaries are directly observable in today's society. D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover I want men and women to be able to think sex, fully, completely, honestly and cleanly [] If I use the taboo words, there is a reason. We shall never free the phallic reality from the "uplift" taint until we give it its own phallic language, and use the obscene words (Lawrence, cited in McArthur 1996:52).
51

(p.

87) this sentence means that the girl was sexual abused. Also we have such examples like:

Lady Chatterly's Lover is D. H. Lawrence's most famous, and infamous, work. As seen in the above quotation, Lawrence's intention was to encourage freedom and honesty in interaction (see also Karl and Magalaner, 1959, and Burack, 1997). "His war was against evasive, reticent language, which makes for evasive, reticent living and thinking," (Nin, 1964:109), and his tactics were in agreement with Read's (1934) view that taboo is a "disease" in language. Both men advocated the abolishment of such restrictions. First published in 1928 in Europe, Lady Chatterly's Lover could only be printed in abridged form in Britain until the groundbreaking case of Regina vs. Penguin Books in 1960. A result of this case was the revision of the Obscene Publications Act of 1857, which aimed to prevent publication of works that "deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences," (Marsh, 1998:207). The charges against Lawrence's novel addressed both the language and the subject matter, and comments on the novel included: "the most evil outpouring that has ever besmirched the literature of our country," (from a review of Lady Chatterly's Lover, in Ellis and De Zordo, 1992:215). Although the period in which Lawrence was writing is much closer historically than that of Jane Austen, the values were not identical to those held today. Lawrence was 16 years old when Queen Victoria died in 1901, and the sexual repression that existed during that monarch's reign was apparent to him and an influence on his work (cf. Craig, 1992, and Resina, 1992). His aim in Lady Chatterly's Lover was to bring sex back into the foreground and to "break with taboos on sexuality from the past," (Spilka, 1990:183) that had placed the topic firmly within the underground worlds of seedy, secret sex shops, illicit pornography and the denial of sexual impulses. Worthen (1991:105) says of Lawrence: "all his life he had been skirting around something that he would much rather have been honest about." D. H. Lawrence's Euphemisms13 Despite the frequency of the 'taboo' Anglo-Saxon words 'fuck' and 'cunt', Lady Chatterly's Lover abounds with euphemism and delicacies of language, as shown in Table 2. Whereas the gamekeeper favours undeviating terms, other characters in the novel prefer less direct terms, including a wide variety of foreign words, either through derivation or as loan words. While the referents for such Latinate terms were inappropriate for Austen, they are fitting for the subject matter in this novel, and are accordingly abundant, as are Greek and French words of the same semantic group. In keeping with the classical, learned atmosphere created by such foreign words (Allen and Burridge, 1991), Lawrence also uses a large number of metaphors and metonyms. Whereas
13

See Appendix 2 for the list of euphemisms found in Lady Chatterly's Lover. All page references in this section refer to Lawrence (1928), unless otherwise stated.

52

metaphorical writing is characteristic of Lawrence in general (cf. Humma, 1990), the metonyms seem to oppose his claim for directness, especially evasive strategies such as 'him' [his prick], and 'her' [her cunt] which would be more in character for Jane Austen. Unlike Austen, however, Lawrence does not use reversals, understatements or overstatements in his euphemisms, but he does use 'intimate' both non-sexually (1928:283) and sexually (p. 290), showing both the progress in semantic change of this word since Austen's time, and that using this word as a sexual euphemism was in practice at the beginning of the twentieth century. The category of 'phonemic replacement' remains empty. An interesting side-note, when contemplating the three euphemisms not covered by Warren's model, is that creation of the euphemism "John Thomas" is often attributed to Lawrence. This is not the case, however, as the term has actually been in existence since the mid-nineteenth century (Nash, 1995). The failure of Warren's model to include this, and the other 'rogue' euphemisms, is addressed below. Fiona Walker's Well Groomed For the greater part of the vast history of humankind talk of sex, of bodily love, was distinctly out of bounds. Certainly it was not permitted in polite society; that one could not speak of it there was one of the things that made polite society, well, polite (Epstein 1985:57). The tone of Epstein's statement suggests that society is gradually becoming less "polite" and that talk of "bodily love" is acceptable, though frowned upon. If this is the case, the breeding ground for euphemisms should be highly active as people strive to converse about sex, but retain the awareness that "polite society" still expects certain standards of decorum - even if they are lower than in previous times. Epstein goes on to say that, while sex has always been on people's minds, now it is also on their tongues. This certainly seems to be true when considering the genre in which the novels of Fiona Walker are included - the modern "female novel".

Fiona Walker's Euphemisms Whilst dealing directly with sex, Walker uses a wide array of euphemisms, and generally avoids the bluntness displayed by Lawrence, most noticeably in the absence of the word 'cunt'. Although this word is no longer restricted in novels, it has not gained the popularity of 'fuck' which is common in both film and print. It appears that the censors have moved from
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novels to cinema and television, as 'cunt' remains uncommon in these fields. The reason for the absence of 'cunt' in this novel is, therefore, stylistic, showing that it is still frowned upon - or at least dispreferred - in modern society, and Walker prefers to euphemise the referent - usually as a metonym. Although the number of metonyms is smaller, the euphemisms and referents in Walker's work are surprisingly consistent with those in Lady Chatterly's Lover, which could be expected given the subject matter. It does, however, show that metonymical strategies are similar over this time period. As with Lawrence, metaphors are abundant, and Walker also declines to use reversals, understatements or overstatements, and the derivation and loan words are limited to French and Latin. These 'foreign' words are deeply embedded in the English language now and many, for example 'affair' (from the French 'affair', are accepted without reference or acknowledgement to their roots. They are not intended to show educational achievements as in the works of Austen and Lawrence. At last, the category of 'phonemic modification' is activated, though examples are still scarce. The euphemisms in this category, as well as the onomatopoeic ones, show the writer's playfulness. This is not intended to be a serious novel, which is also evident in the implications that often require several wild leaps to arrive at the sexual connotation. The author has chosen her words purposely, and cleverly, so that readers are required to draw these conclusions and keep their minds in the semantic mindset of the novel, i.e. "sizzling [] love, sex, passion," (The Sun (tabloid newspaper), a review on the cover of Walker,1996).

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Conclusion All in this world draw to its close. So my work also come to the logical end. What can I say, of course I cant say that finally I learn how to write diploma paper, no I just start and I asking for you not judge my first attempt too severely. Further I enumerate in short the content of my work and make a conclusion. Euphemisms are powerful linguistic tools that "are embedded so deeply in our language that few of us, even those who pride themselves on being plainspoken, ever get through a day without using them," (Rawson, 1981:1). The need for euphemism is both social and emotional, as it allows discussion of 'touchy' or taboo subjects (such as sex, personal appearances or religion) without enraging, outraging, or upsetting other people, and acts as a pressure valve whilst maintaining the appearance of civility. The diploma work is devoted to the comparison of euphemisms connected with death and sex in Kyrgyz and English languages. The aim of research work was to give the lexical and semantic analysis of euphemisms in both languages and to investigate the ways of their origins as well, also diploma paper is focused on definitions of euphemisms, areas of use, relation between euphemisms and dysphemisms, effect of pejoration on euphemisms, possibilities of expressing euphemisms through figures of speech. To achive this purposes the comparative, historical, contrastive and descriptive methods have been applied. The theoretical part of my diploma work deal with the subject of euphemisms. The aim of theoretical part of my work was to significate the term euphemism, to reveal Etymology of euphemism and to make a classification of euphemisms. As far as the classification was one of the purposes of this part, it was given classifications of linguists wich were most optimal and logical. So I think that the aim was reached. This part concentrate on giving general information about euphemisms. To make clear when and how we use it and combining interesting scientific facts and examples from our life. The practical part itroduses a suggestions for reaching the goals explored in the theoretical part. The analytical part of the diploma work is aimed at euphemisms occurring in death and sex. Was found differences between euphemisms in Kyrgyz and English languages. Not just grammar or phonetic distinctions, but more weighty aspects: different religion, beliefs, social views, gender especiallyty and quite different mentality and customs native speakers of this two great languages. The research of such aspects as the origin at euphemisms, the reason why they appeared: systematizing of wordsnconcerning some euphemisms can be identified as the main point of the work. In all areas of social life in the application of Euphemisms to cover up the ugly people a shamed of the fact that, to avoid the embarrassment and abrupt communication phenomenon. If we are to be applied in communication just right euphemisms,
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so that both respect for others, they embody in their own language cultivation itself in an invincible position in the social context, it would need its definition, characteristics and applications have some understanding, while also on the culture of different societies, customs and different understanding of the context have a certain order at the right time, place and say the right words. To conclude, it appears that there are a variety of ways in which the results of studies on euphemism could benefit not just those trying to understand language, but also those wrestling with the nature of humanity. To trace human characteristics through history, broader studies of the kind presented here could analyse court documents, medical, church and city records, as well as further literary examples. The formation of euphemism could be traced further back in time using these work to gain a deeper understanding of the historical roots of both languages, or of other languages for which sufficient evidence exists. Finally, considering the motivation for euphemism permits the outsider a view of the highly individual thoughts and linguistic choices of another human being, of "notions which are not open to observation," (Warren, 1992:159). This insight shows how people are affected, or even controlled, by the mores and pressures of society and, as demonstrated by Lawrence, how they react when they are broken. As George Orwell (1978:65) wrote: "if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." Euphemism shows how people encode their ideals and beliefs within societal boundaries, but the question of from whom we are concealing our true thoughts, and why, remains. I hope the materials of my diploma paper have a good practical value. They can be used in compiling the Kyrgyz English Dictionary of Euphemisms, in literature of English and ryrgyz languages, in translation of euphemisms used in colloquial speech. They can be also used as a special course for lessons of our University.

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Bibliography A Press. Pound, Louise (1936) American euphemisms for dying, death and burial. American Speech 11-3: 195-202. Rawson, Hugh (1995) Dictionary of Euphemism and Other Double talk. New York Uses of Euphemism, pp. 203-219. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harris, John (1991) Ireland. In Jenny Cheshire (ed.), EngUsh Around the World, pp. 37-49 Goatly, Andrew (1997) The Language of Metaphors. London and New York: Routledge. Gross, John (1985) Intimations of Mortality. In D. J. Enright (ed.), Fair of Speech. The Allan, Keith &Kate Burridge (1991) Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language Used as Shield and Weapon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Metaphor in the euphemistic manipulation of the taboo of sex. USR; 2006 Cultural Protocol Death in a community Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Dyen, Isidore, A. T. James & J. W. L. Cole. 1967. Language divergence and estimated word retention rate. Language 43/1: 150-171. Gould, S.J., The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton & Co, New York, 1996, pp. 188-189. George Carlin, They're Only Words, Track 14 on Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics, Atlantic/Wea audio CD, 1990. The Age.com. McCool, W.C. (1957-02-06), Return of Rongelapese to their Home Island Note by the Secretary, United States Atomic Energy Commission, , retrieved on 2007-11-07. Snopes.com, "Buy the Farm". B [http://www.ucm.es/info/perioI/PeriodI/EMP/ [http://www.institutions.org.uk/hospitals/info/irish_fever_hospitals.htm]. Euphemism Webster's Online Dictionary. American Heritage Dictionary definition of "retarded" via answers.com. Random House.com. The Age.com. http://worf.eh.doe.gov/ihp/chron/A43.PDF

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