Euphemism is of the language areas, language is a social phenomenon, so the main social function of Euphemisms are as follows
7.1 to replace Taboo; Taboo including bad language (rapist), the vulgar words (vulgar). God made the disobedient (profane) and the unlucky (ominous words). In most cases, people are unwilling to use such taboo language, but when he has , it is necessary to use a euphemism.
7.2 to hide something; Use the nice word to replace the bad-natured things. Euphemisms can best embodied the war in this point. In order to hide the ugly natuer of war, slaughter (the Holocaust) was described as a depopulation (reducing the population). invasion (invasion) was described as involvement (intervention) "genocide" (genocide) was described as a "final solution" (the final settlement ) while burying his head in the sand. So Euphemism is also known as the (cosmetic words).
7.3 to please people. This followed the principles of courtesy communication, it is gratifying to learn that "Elegance" the words, Euphemism directly express more than "good" and the other side easier to accept. "Waiter" known as "captain", although the nature and content of his work has not changed. But the other side willing to accept it, you can eliminate the inferiority complex. For example, a student with mental retardation. Just to be "a bit slow for his age", so that self-esteem from being harmed.
7.4 create humorous effect; humorous Euphemism can help people to face reality. If we use "push up daisies" to replace "be buried", it can reduce people's fear for death ; "be sent into prison" (jail) as a "live at gover nment 's expense "and this apparently increased the fun.
7.5 expression strategy; Can be used with a different meaning in the form and the results are likely to vary. This involves the art of words. For example, there is a passenger vomiting use of the equipment bags, above do not normally write "vomit bag" message, instead of "for motion discomfort." The findings show that for those people who are already vulnerable to the jolting vomiting passengers on the plane, it does help reduce the occurrence of the phenomenon of vomiting. This is the clever usage of euphemism .
To correctly and appropriately use euphemism can achieve the desired results, but the abuse of euphemismon will results the opposite . Let us compare the following two paragraphs :