"It is Fundamentally True That the Terms Below Are in English," NY Times, 5/26/96, Week in Review, p. 7. Why can't we all just get along? Maybe because we have no idea what anyone else is saying. After all, nobody's fired anymore; employees are selectively separated. There are no more old people, but swelling ranks of the chronologically gifted. The era of big government is over, but the Feds still spend $1.6 trillion a year. In plain English, American is awash in doublespeak and euphemisms. Lawyers, spinmeisters, C.E.O.'s and politicians are employing language as a tool, to further their own agendas rather than forthrightly communicate. In high culture, impenetrable jargon has become so rife that art critics and curators recently met in new York to discuss whether windbaggery is eroding interest in contemporary art. And a New York University physicist recently gained national attention when he duped a leading journal into publishing a parody of its stultifying, buzzword-laden prose. But take heart: As we struggle to decipher what we read and hear, language purists are rushing to the rescue with books, newsletters and Web sites to serve as decoding rings of English. Here are excerpts. ======================================================================== From the latest issue of "The Quarterly Review of Doublespeak": EDUCATION: The Clark County Nev.. Board of Education has decreed . . . students who earn D's or below will be characterized not as borderline passing or failing but as emerging. Those earning A's will no longer be commended for excellent work but will be told merely that hey are extending, and those in between will not be described as doing adequate or mediocre work but [that] they are developing. ADVERTISING: A TV commercial for an antacid called Pepcid AC shows a daughter telling her mother that eh drug works for nine hours. The mother replies, "Nine hours. That's al day." Apparently the mother sleeps for 15 hours in each 24-hour day. GOVERNMENT: Yes indeed, let's be nice. Very, very, very nice! That is the new politically correct watchword. Indeed let us be so nice that we say nothing negative about the Ku Klux Klan. And indeed, this is what the county Board of Milwaukee, Wis., has decided to do. No longer will the phrase _hate groups_ be used by the council to characterize groups such as the Klan. The Klan and their sidekicks are now referred to by the county board as _unhappy groups_. LAW ENFORCEMENT: When some of the bullets fired by Phoenix, Ariz., police at a man brandishing a shotgun hit the door or a residential home, a police spokesman responded that "to hit center mass all the time is not realistic." In other words, "Sometimes we miss." ======================================================================== The Inuits have at least 27 words for snow because, well, they live on the tundra. Given the business climate, it's not surprising that there is an even more extensive vocabulary to describe getting fired. James H. Kennedy, publisher of "Executive Recruiters News," a trade magazine for headhunters, compiles an ever-expanding list of terms used by industry. Here's the most recent: Asked to Resign Axed Canned Career Assessment and Re-employment Career Transition Chemistry Change Coerced Transition Decruited Degrowing Dehiring Deployment Deselected Destaffing Discharged Dismissal Displacement Downsizing Excessed Executive Cutting Force Reduction Fumigation Indefinite Idling Involuntary Separation Job Separation Let Go Negotiated Departure Outplacement Personnel Surplus Reduction Position Elimination Premature Retirement Redeployment Redirected Redundancy Elimination Release Reorganization Replaced Requested Departure RIF -- Reduction in Force Right-sizing Sacked Selected Out Selectively Separated Skill Mix Adjustment Termination Transitioned Vocational Relocation Workforce Adjustment Workforce Imbalance Correction ======================================================================== In "Rawsons Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk," Hugh Rawson relates that many terms now accepted as plain English originated as doubletalk: SALOON: A saloon originally was a drawing room or parlor i.e. a salon and the term was applied to business establishments of many -- beauty saloons, bowling saloons and ice cream saloons among them. The smell of whisky was so strong, however, that it was generally recognized that saloon-keepers, saloon-men, saloonists and most poetic saloonitics were not curling hair, setting up bowling pins or selling ice cream. Although the Noble Experiment of Prohibition failed, the euphemism was so tainted in the process that when the old saloons reopened they did so as bars, cocktail lounges, tap rooms and taverns. CEMETERY: A graveyard; the euphemism is betrayed by its origin, the original Greek _koimeterion_, referring to a "dormitory" or "sleeping place." First applied by early Christian writers to the Roman catacombs, later to consecrated churchyards. If cemetery seems to be a relatively honest, straightforward word today, that is because we have grown used to it -- and it looks good in comparison to some of the newer terms that have been floated by graveyard developers: burial-abbey and burial cloister; garden of honor, garden of memories, love glade, memorial park mausoleum. In the language of slang, too, there are many circumlocutions for graveyard (whistling past it, in effect). For example: bone orchard, boneyard, future home, God's acre, hell's acre, last home, marble city, permanent rest home, skeleton park, Stiffyville, and underground jungle. MORTICIAN: Undertaker. Modeled after "physician," this represents one of the bolder attempts by people in the death business to trade on the prestige of the medical profession. "Mortician" was formally proposed in the February 1895 issue of Embalmer's Monthly, and was received enthusiastically by those sensitive souls who did not think "funeral director," the reigning alternative to undertaker, to be sufficiently high toned. Mortician lost a lot of its professional sheen on account of all the imitations it inspired. Of these, beautician and cosmetician/cosmetologist have lasted the longest and probably hurt the most. Others dating from the 1920's and 1930's included bootblacktician, fizzician (soda jerk), locktician (locksmith), shoetrician (cobbler) and whooptician (cheerleader). FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH: Not the full truth; untruth. "Now under all these circumstances, and press conferences and so forth after that, I want to say right here and now that some of them were not true. Most of them were fundamentally true on the big issues but without going as far as I should have gone." (Richard M. Nixon, interview with David Frost in "I Gave Them a Sword," 1978.) The point, of course, is that "truth" should never have to be qualified; when it is, the buyer should beware. ======================================================================== Quantitatively Assess Your Euphistic Aptitude Match the euphemisms with the English. This is excerpted from a quiz in "The New Doublespeak" by William Lutz (Harper Collins), which will be published in July. 1. Suffer from fictitious disorder syndrome A. Stolen Goods 2. Sub-optimal B. Junkyard 3. Temporarily displaced inventory C. Plastic 4. Negative gain in test scores D. A bag of ice cubes 5. Synthetic glass E. Bribe 6. Normal gratitude F. Death 7. Vegetarian leather G. Liar 8. Thermal therapy kit H. Vinyl 9. Substantive negative outcome I. Failed 10.Reutilization marketing yard J. Lower test scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-G 2-I 3-A 4-J 5-C 6-E 7-H 8-D 9-F 10-B