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Euphemisms are best changed frequently (2016)
Euphemisms are like underwear: best changed frequently. What work are they doing in our language and why do they expire?
The reason for this rolling semantic renewal is that the meanings of words are, in actual usage, messier than their dictionary definitions, cast in the tidy eternity of print, might make them seem. Similar is affirmative action: a term that 50 years ago resounded with a clean, stalwart clang of high-minded social justice now sounds freighted, sour, vague and tired to many on both sides of the political spectrum. In the mid-20th century, urban renewal was a term of art for what on the ground displaced millions of Americans, often from low-income but stable neighbourhoods deemed ‘slums’ and razed down.
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