Hi, everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour. 歡迎回來酒館. Hi, 安瀾.

Hi, lulu, hi, everyone.

As we're recording this, we are right in the middle of the 清明 holidays. And I don't know if you've noticed I was doing live streaming earlier and we were talking about the taboo subject of death.

Yeah. So this is a taboo subject in English as well and in many many many other cultures as well, not just Chinese culture.

But we're not going to talk about death per se in this episode.

What I am going to mention is because it's a taboo subject, in both English and in Chinese, we've created lots of roundabout ways to talk about death. Instead of saying someone has died, we say he or she has passed away, or has gone to a better place for example. So these are called euphemism, right?

Yes, so a euphemism is a polite or less direct way of saying something that might be unpleasant or uncomfortable.

這個是委婉語.

So I thought we can talk about euphemisms in English today, not just about death, but about many other subjects as well.

Yeah. So euphemisms are common. They're not just spoken English, but they're also used in written English as well. And as you say, it's not just about death. It's about any social interaction that might cause negative or awkward situations or might cause offense.

這個委婉語在中文里也有很多, I think any language with longish history would develop lots of that. By the way, 安瀾, how did you learn, as an English speaker, how did you learn about all of these euphemisms? Did they teach you in school or just your parents teach you?

We don't learn them at school. We just could have picked them up. We notice how our parents use. So it was because obviously as a child you do talk about kind of sensitive topics, you do hear about sensitive topics and euphemisms are used a lot particularly in Britain.

For example, have they ever told you that your pet rabbit has gone to live on a farm?

No, that's more of an American euphemism.

Okay , what would you say when a pet dies.

Well in my family we would actually just say it's died. Okay. We are a little bit more sort of direct about it.

Okay, you know in Chinese what we say ? for example for cats, we say they return to the Meow Planet.

That's sweet.

I know, and then with the dog we say they returned to the Woof Planet.

I like that. It's a really nice thing to say.

Right? Like 喵星和汪星, but before we get into this specific examples of euphemisms in English, why do we use euphemisms in any language? You said it's about politeness.

Yes, so it's to soften difficult or uncomfortable subjects.

When someone lost someone, you don't say, has this person just died? You say, have they passed away.

Or you don't even have to say the word you just say has he... and generally people would know.

Yeah, okay.

But moving away from death, it’s also to talk about things like physical appearance. So there's an element of tact. You don't want to offend someone. You have to be sensitive to their feelings.

Like when you get asked “Do I look fat in this dress?” It's like little white lies but not to the extent of a lie. More like you try not to use certain words like “fat” for example, yeah.

And I guess also like formality, for example bathroom routines, when you're at the clients meeting or like a banquet, you don't say I am going to the toilet to do whatever, you don't say specific words, you probably just say “excuse me” or “powder my nose”, that's an old one.

Where is the restroom?

But we can talk about that later.

Yeah, and also there's a certain degree of humor as well. So sometimes euphemisms can be used humorously to make serious topics sound a bit lighter.

Again, for example, I said in live streaming to kick the bucket就是什么蹬腿? But this is more like a comical way.

This is a comical way. So people would say this as a joke. Normally they would use it to refer to themselves. But You'd never ever say to someone who actually have suffered a bereavement.

You wouldn't. But if it's someone you really hated--died, you talk with your friends probably would use the word “kick the bucket”.

Well. Even if you really hate them. In English, we have a saying you don't speak ill of the dead, so even if you really really really hate them, if you start insulting people after they've died...

It's bad taste.

It's very, very bad taste.

But move away from that, so let us get into the specific common euphemisms used in everyday English. I think we divide this into topics. Let's start with “death” and “loss”. We've already said pass away.

Yeah, or gone to a better place.

And what else?

You can say rest in peace.

Or like at rest .

He is at rest now.

So move away from death and loss. Nowadays, job market becomes so fierce and competitive. A lot of people are losing their jobs. I've heard of an expression “I am between jobs”, so I haven't lost my job, I'm not unemployed. 我不是這個失業, 我是”between jobs”, between job A and job B ,I just haven't found it.

Exactly ,which means unemployed, but isn't much nicer way of saying unemployed.

Is it ?

Well, not really .

But at least probably it’s slightly, it just sounds slightly nicer.

Yeah, and also if you've been fired you might talk about being let go or the company has downsized.

Basically downsizing of a company is that they have to cut the fat i.e. unnecessary people.

Yeah. So even if it's downsizing by one person, we would say the company has downsized, even if you're the only person that's been fired.

Yeah, fire is such a harsh word and often implies that the employee has done something wrong, someone gets fired. But if someone is let go or someone's mate redundant or the company has downsized, it talks more about the company. The company is making some strategic decisions. It has nothing to do with the person who's let go.

And obviously, when you're in your 60s, then that's time to retire. So we do use the euphemism retired.

How is that using euphemism? Isn't that just retired?

Well we also use it as a euphemism to describe people who are too old to work. So we'll say he's at retirement age instead of saying he's old.

Yes, of course because you don't really want to use the word “old”.

Yes.