7.2.3. Euphemisms

There is a variety of periphrasis which we shall call euphemistic.

E u p h e m i s m (4) is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or expression by a conventionally more acceptable one, for example, the word 'to die' has bred the following euphemisms: to 'pass away, to expire, to be no more, to depart, to join the majority, to be gone, and the more facetious ones: to kick the bucket, to give up the ghost, to go west. So euphemisms are synonyms which aim at producing a deli­berately mild effect.

"They think we have come by this horse in some dishonest manner."

Euphemisms may be divided into several groups: 1) religious, 2) moral, 3) medical, 4) parliamentary.

Euphemism must call up the word it stands for. It is the result of deliberate clash between two synonyms. If a euphemism fails to carry along with it the word it is intended to replace, it is not a euphemism, but a deliberate veiling of the truth.

Compare these word-combinations with real euphemisms to glow (= to sweat), all of which bring to our mind the other word (words) and only through them the referent.

Here is another good example of euphemistic phrases used by Gals­worthy in his "Silver Spoon."

"In private I should merely call him a liar. In the Press you should use the words: 'Reckless disregard for truth' and in Parlia­ment—that you regret he 'should have been so misinformed.'"

Periphrastic and euphemistic expressions were characteristic of cer­tain literary trends and even produced a term periphrastic style. But it soon gave way to a more straightforward way of describing things.

7.2.4. Hyperbole

Another SD which also has the function of intensifying one certain property of the object overstatement or exaggeration of a feature essential (unlike periphrasis) to the object of phenomenon. In its extreme form this exaggeration is carried to an illogical degree, sometimes ad absurdum. For example:

"He was so tall that I was not sure he had a face." (O. Henry) or, "Those three words (Dombey and Son) conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey's life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in and the sun and moon were made to give them light. Riv­ers and seas were formed to float their ships; rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their orbits to preserve inviolate a sys­tem of which they were the centre." (Dickens)

In order to depict the width of the river Dnieper Gogol uses the follow­ing hyperbole:

"It's a rare bird that can fly to the middle of the Dnieper."

Like many stylistic devices, hyperbole may lose its quality as a styl­istic device through frequent repetition and become a unit of the language-as-a-system, reproduced in speech in its unaltered form. Here are some examples of language hyperbole:

'A thousand pardons'; 'scared to death', 'immensely obliged;' 'I'd give the world to see him.'

Byron says:

"When people say "I've told you fifty times" They mean to scold, and very often do."

Hyperbole differs from mere exaggeration in that it is intended to be understood as an exaggeration. In this connection the following quo­tations deserve a passing note:

"Hyperbole is the result of a kind of intoxication by emotion, which prevents a person from seeing things in their true dimen­sions... If the reader (listener) is not carried away by the emotion of the writer (speaker), hyperbole becomes a mere lie."¹

Hyperbole (5) is a device which sharpens the reader's ability to make a logical assessment of the utterance. This is achieved, as is the case with other devices, by awakening the dichotomy of thought and feeling where thought takes the upper hand though not to the detriment of feeling.