Metaphor and simile and Euphemism (how do you keep 'em straight)?

[Adair Bordon]

My grandaughter has to do a metaphor:simile:euphemism identification of
a half-dozen poems, e.g., "I, Too, Sing America, by Langston Hughes".

She asked me for help, but, the entire set of poems (virtually every
word and/or phrase) seems to be a metaphor for something (to me).

For example, in "I, Too, America", "darker brother" is clearly a
euphemism for "slave", and "I too, am America" is an methaphor
for being a "citizen", etc.

I don't want you do to her homework for her, but, I can't even
help her since I easily confuse metaphor with euphemism with
simile.

So, I ask: How do you keep them separate when you're trying to read
a series of poems (about 10 pages in all) to help identify which is
which?

[Adair Bordon]

Adair Bordon wrote, on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:34:55 +0000:

> She asked me for help, but, the entire set of poems (virtually every
> word and/or phrase) seems to be a metaphor for something (to me).

Looking it up ... what's confusing are these terms...
- metaphor - a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance,
- simile - a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in “she is like a rose.”.
- euphemism - the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.

These are so similar, it's hard to distinguish between each.

For example, a metaphor is a metaphor unless it's an euphemism?
(i.e., a sugar-coated metaphor)

[Adair Bordon]

Adair Bordon wrote, on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:41 +0000:

> For example, a metaphor is a metaphor unless it's an euphemism?
> (i.e., a sugar-coated metaphor)

Is this a good summary of the distinction between the 3 things?

metaphor === resemblance
simile === unlike
euphemism === sugar coating (either a metaphor or a simile)

[Peter T. Daniels]

"Euphemism" is in the eye of the beholder. I'd say the teacher is in error
lumping it together with the other two. But since she's required to identify
some, she needs to look at the intention of the writer -- I don't think
Langsston Hughes would be using euphemisms for "Negro" (which was the usual
term during his lifetime), but rather synonyms. A euphemism is when the writer
/ speaker wants to avoid using some word because it's distasteful and so uses
a word that's neutral.

"Simile" is when it says something is _like_ something else.

"Metaphor" is when it says something _is_ something else.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Adair Bordon skrev:

> I don't want you do to her homework for her, but, I can't even
> help her since I easily confuse metaphor with euphemism with
> simile.

> So, I ask: How do you keep them separate when you're trying to read
> a series of poems (about 10 pages in all) to help identify which is
> which?

The principles are relatively easy - it's applying them that
causes trouble.

1. metaphor: you take an element from another field and use about
something you want to describe.

An angry wind swept over the field.
(The wind is described as if it were human)

2. euphemism: is used to hide an unpleasant fact. Your
slave-example is good. "Bathroom" is a euphemism for a more
direct description of what is going on, and other languages have
similar euphemisms.

"Protective measures" could be a euphemism used by a dictator to
hide the fact that he keeps his people in an iron grip.

3. simile: I am not quite certain about this one, but I think it
is a comparison between unrelated subjects. Dictionary.com has
the example:

She is like a rose.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Adair Bordon skrev:

> Is this a good summary of the distinction between the 3 things?

No.

> metaphor === resemblance

A metaphor ascribes 'wrong' properties to an object (or
phenomenon).

The wind blew fast.
(that is normal for the wind)
The wind blew angrily.
(that is a metaphor)
The wind blew like a jetmotor.
(that is a normal comparison)

> simile === unlike

No. A simili also expresses a similarity (hence the name).

> euphemism === sugar coating (either a metaphor or a simile)

Sugar coating is correct, but it is not a metaphor, and I don't
think that it is a simile (about which I am not certain).

Using "dark brother" for "slave" does not describe a slave with
elements from an unrelated field. Slaves from Africa actually had
dark skin.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Richard Tobin]

In article <5b085762-715f-4176...@googlegroups.com>,

Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>"Simile" is when it says something is _like_ something else.
>
>"Metaphor" is when it says something _is_ something else.

That's what you have to know to satisfy school teachers.

But really the important thing about a metaphor is that it conveys the
attributes of one thing by reference to those of another, and whether
you do this by saying "A is B" or "A is like B" is immaterial. A
simile is therefore a way of expressing a metaphor.

-- Richard

[micky]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:41 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon
<Adair@not_my_real_email.com> wrote:

>Adair Bordon wrote, on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:34:55 +0000:
>
>> She asked me for help, but, the entire set of poems (virtually every
>> word and/or phrase) seems to be a metaphor for something (to me).
>
>Looking it up ... what's confusing are these terms...
>- metaphor - a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance,

Yes. My love a fiery furnace. My love (girlfriend) is a red rose)

>- simile - a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in “she is like a rose.”.

Yes, My love is LIKE a red rose I'm sure there are a variety of
ways to say "like" without using that word. But otoh, if you say "My
love resembles a red rose", is that still a simile?

>- euphemism - the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.

Yes, exactly.
He passed to the other side, instead of died, because died sounds harsh.
Mortician instead whatever preceded it. Funeral director instead of
mortician.
Plus-size instead of fat.
Ethnic cleaning instead of ethicity-based murder. (What's amazing
about this one is that even the enemies of the ethnic-based murderers
quickly and completely afaik adopted the term ethnic cleansing. That
is, they cooperated with the murderers in minimizeing their murder, and
that includes American tv and radio news and newspapers too, I think, as
well as American politicians of both parties. There is nothing clean
about murder.

Also IMO they've been screwing up the meaning of eupemism in recent
years (though probably not when Langston Hughes was writing, unless he
was an avant guarde screwer upper) by using eupemism for any rephrasing
of another word, even if the first word had no negativity (no
offensiveness, harshness, or bluntness, to include the words from your
definition) that could be avoided. No examples come to mind right
now, but it's been common. Apparently those people don't understand
what euphemism means, or possibly they have nasty attitudes to things
that have nothing nasty about them. I think it's the first, they like
using long, sophisticated-sounding words.

>These are so similar, it's hard to distinguish between each.
>
>For example, a metaphor is a metaphor unless it's an euphemism?

I hadn't thought about this but I'm think that's true at least some of
the time. Well maybe. Here are some ways it' s often not the same.
Most metaphors use things that in most ways are quite different from
what they are applied to. My love is a fiery furnace. And love is a
good thing so it's not possible to have a euphemism for love. And if
one speaks of a fiery furnace without the reference to love, or to
people, listeners will think about a furnace with fire. No one will
think he's talking about love. Love and a furnace are quite different
except both can be hot. YOu can touch or stand near a furnace and see
how hot it is, which is why it adds a quality to simple word love.


>(i.e., a sugar-coated metaphor)



--
Please say where you live, or what
area's English you are asking about.
So your question or answer makes sense.
. .
I have lived all my life in the USA,
Western Pa. Indianapolis, Chicago,
Brooklyn, Baltimore.

[micky]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:34:55 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon
<Adair@not_my_real_email.com> wrote:

>My grandaughter has to do a metaphor:simile:euphemism identification of
>a half-dozen poems, e.g., "I, Too, Sing America, by Langston Hughes".
>
>She asked me for help, but, the entire set of poems (virtually every
>word and/or phrase) seems to be a metaphor for something (to me).
>
>For example, in "I, Too, America", "darker brother" is clearly a
>euphemism for "slave",

And clearly not a metaphor, since he's talking about someone who is
really darker (in most cases). Well, for the word brother I take that
back. Perhaps that's a metaphor when used for anyone not a literal
brother, without at least one common parent. Was "brother" a metaphor
at one time? Can a metaphor turn into a meaning, and thus lose its
status as a metaphor? I don't know, but I'd give your gdaughter points
if she noticed "brother". OTOH, some teachers might just think she's
wrong.

Trying to figure out what teachers want is a challenge in itself. IIRC
trying to figure out the answer wanted on the SATs was even a bigger
challenge for a few questions.

>and "I too, am America" is an methaphor
>for being a "citizen", etc.
>
>I don't want you do to her homework for her, but, I can't even
>help her since I easily confuse metaphor with euphemism with
>simile.
>
>So, I ask: How do you keep them separate when you're trying to read
>a series of poems (about 10 pages in all) to help identify which is
>which?

Maybe go through once identifying the most obvious ones. And the ones
that are clearly not the other two. After that practice, start over
looking for less obvious ones.

I don't read poetry, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's heavy on
metaphors and if similes are less common.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Bertel Lund Hansen <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote in news:mc7ls3$ujc$1
@dont-email.me:

> Adair Bordon skrev:
>
>> Is this a good summary of the distinction between the 3 things?
>
> No.
>
>> metaphor === resemblance
>
> A metaphor ascribes 'wrong' properties to an object (or
> phenomenon).

A metaphor can ascribe 'wrong' properties to an object, but that's
incidental.

> The wind blew fast.
> (that is normal for the wind)
> The wind blew angrily.
> (that is a metaphor)

No it isn't. It's an instance of the pathetic fallacy. Metaphor involves
an implicit comparison, e.g., 'the wind herded the clouds across the
sky', which (obviously) compares the wind to a herdsman and the clouds to
herd animals.

Unintentionally combining multiple metaphors can be a source of
amusement, but poets sometimes combine them intentionally to great
effect, as in Shakespeare's famous line 'to take up arms against a sea of
troubles, and by opposing end them.' It would obviously be futile to take
up arms against a real sea, but that futility is what makes the complete
trope such a superb metaphor for suicide.

> The wind blew like a jetmotor.
> (that is a normal comparison)

That's a simile, as indicated by the use of 'like': similes typically use
'like' or 'as' to make the comparison explicit.

>> simile === unlike
>
> No. A simili also expresses a similarity (hence the name).
>
>> euphemism === sugar coating (either a metaphor or a simile)
>
> Sugar coating is correct, but it is not a metaphor, and I don't
> think that it is a simile (about which I am not certain).

Simile would defeat the purpose of euphemism: the person using the simile
would have to use the word he or she was trying to avoid. Euphemism need
not be metaphoric, either. In the United States, it's common to refer to
voiding urine and/or excrement as 'going to the bathroom', which is a
euphemism - but in most people's homes the receptacle for urine and
excrement is in fact located in the bathroom: one literally goes to the
bathroom in order to figuratively go to the bathroom.

> Using "dark brother" for "slave" does not describe a slave with
> elements from an unrelated field. Slaves from Africa actually had
> dark skin.

Absent context, 'dark brother' seems to be a metaphor - Hughes is
presumably not referring to an actual sibling.
--
S.O.P.

[Jerry Friedman]

Yes, I'd agree that a simile is a type of metaphor. However, for a
school assignment, the distinction is indeed that a simile uses "like"
or "as" (and to answer Micky's question, I'd add "resembles" and
anything similar) and a metaphor doesn't.

The question of whether there are any similes in "I, Too, am America"
is straightforward--just look for "like" and other words that explicitly
make comparisons. In my opinion, some of the figurative language in
the poem is not so easy to classify.

Other people have explained "euphemism".

--
Jerry Friedman

[Don Phillipson]

"Adair Bordon" <Adair@not_my_real_email.com> wrote in message
news:mc7kut$c80$2...@news.albasani.net...

> Looking it up ... what's confusing are these terms...
> - metaphor - a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to
> something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a
> resemblance,
> - simile - a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly
> compared, as in "she is like a rose.".
> - euphemism - the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression
> for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.

Those definitions seem unhelpful.

1. Metaphor is the application of a word or phrase originating in
a well-recognized context to a different context, e.g. saying
a good sports player is a thunderbolt, or saying a good answer
in debate hit the bullseye (when no weapons or targets are present.)

2. "Simile" comes from the Latin word = likeness. Nearly all
similes in English use the word "like." When we say a footballer
is like a charging warhorse we have used a simile. When we
say an athlete (e.g. runner) defeated the man who came
second, we are using a metaphor.

3. Euphemism is the choice of a mild or genteel word
for social reasons, e.g. "usual offices" for washroom/lavatory,
e.g. "X has alcohol issues" for "X drinks too much."
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Steve Hayes]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:51:02 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon
<Adair@not_my_real_email.com> wrote:

>Adair Bordon wrote, on Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:41 +0000:
>
>> For example, a metaphor is a metaphor unless it's an euphemism?
>> (i.e., a sugar-coated metaphor)
>
>Is this a good summary of the distinction between the 3 things?
>
>metaphor === resemblance

Identification: He is a silly ass.

>simile === unlike

Resemblance: Your teeth are like the stars; they come out at night.

>euphemism === sugar coating (either a metaphor or a simile)

Restroom, when you mean the shithouse.

Or "Oh shit! I've stepped in some doggy-doo."




--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Richard Tobin]

In article <10reea5k7itcq6nrd...@4ax.com>,

micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote:

>And clearly not a metaphor, since he's talking about someone who is
>really darker (in most cases). Well, for the word brother I take that
>back. Perhaps that's a metaphor when used for anyone not a literal
>brother, without at least one common parent. Was "brother" a metaphor
>at one time? Can a metaphor turn into a meaning, and thus lose its
>status as a metaphor?

It happens all the time. You can hardly write a sentence without one.
In your text above, "clearly" and "take that back" are what Fowler
calls "dead metaphors".

-- Richard

[Sneaky O. Possum]

micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
news:hnpeealncpsupcegv...@4ax.com:

> On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:41 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon
> <Adair@not_my_real_email.com> wrote:

[snip]

>>- euphemism - the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague
>>expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.
>
> Yes, exactly.
> He passed to the other side, instead of died, because died sounds
> harsh. Mortician instead whatever preceded it. Funeral director
> instead of mortician.

Many euphemisms for death-related matters probably stem from the ancient
fear that naming a thing will summon it: the Greek word from which
'cemetery' derives literally means 'sleeping place'.

Like words related to excrement and its disposal, words related to death
frequently start out as euphemisms and become taboos by association:
referring to the hole you put a dead body in as a 'grave' (i.e., 'a hole
dug in the ground') was originally euphemistic, but graves are now
associated exclusively with death, so you have to use a word like 'plot'
if you want to avoid unpleasantness.

> Plus-size instead of fat.

No, 'plus-size' instead of 'oversize' or 'big and tall'. I doubt whether
any retailer has ever used 'fat' to refer to clothing sizes. ('Skinny'
only seems to come up with reference to pants legs cut more narrowly
than usual.)

> Ethnic cleaning instead of ethicity-based murder.

'Genocide' is the more usual term in English - 'ethnicity-based murder'
is a bit clunky.

> (What's amazing about this one is that even the enemies of the
> ethnic-based murderers quickly and completely afaik adopted the term
> ethnic cleansing. That is, they cooperated with the murderers in
> minimizeing their murder, and that includes American tv and radio news
> and newspapers too, I think, as well as American politicians of both
> parties. There is nothing clean about murder.

True, but 'murder' is much more than a simple descriptive term, as
anyone discussing the legality of abortion knows all too well. Throw the
word 'murder' into a discussion of whether people dying from incurable
diseases should have the right to ask doctors to kill them and see how
long the discussion remains civil.

The problem is that there is no neutral term that means 'intentionally
cause the death of another' - 'kill' is nearly as loaded as 'murder'.

Cf. the recent argument here over whether people from foreign countries who
have entered the United States illegally should be called 'illegal aliens'
or 'undocumented immigrants'. Neither term is neutral. To argue that the
first is more accurate overlooks the fact that 'illegal' is normally used
to characterize actions, not individuals: if a group of people protesting
are arrested for breaking the law, nobody calls them 'illegal protesters'.
Characterizing a person as 'illegal' is no different from calling them an
outlaw.

The fact that there's no neutral term for the individuals indicates that
there are no neutral attitudes towards the issue. From my point of view,
that creates a frustrating inability to assess the accuracy of any given
claim of fact about the issue: people on both sides are deliberately
distorting reality, and it's damned difficult to know whether anyone on
either side is reliable on the subject.
--
S.O.P.

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:09:36 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
<sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Many euphemisms for death-related matters probably stem from the ancient
>fear that naming a thing will summon it:

As PTD did when naming that Conservative Christian woman.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL

[Peter T. Daniels]

I'll refer you to the monograph on Figurative Language by Michele Prandi
that I'm editing, when it's published. Simile and metaphor are vastly different.

[Katy Jennison]

<grins, makes sign against evil eye, etc>

--
Katy Jennison

[micky]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:09:36 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
<sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:

>micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>news:hnpeealncpsupcegv...@4ax.com:
>
>> On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:41 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon
>> <Adair@not_my_real_email.com> wrote:
>[snip]
>>>- euphemism - the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague
>>>expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.
>>
>> Yes, exactly.
>> He passed to the other side, instead of died, because died sounds
>> harsh. Mortician instead whatever preceded it. Funeral director
>> instead of mortician.
>
>Many euphemisms for death-related matters probably stem from the ancient
>fear that naming a thing will summon it: the Greek word from which
>'cemetery' derives literally means 'sleeping place'.

Interesting.

>
>Like words related to excrement and its disposal, words related to death
>frequently start out as euphemisms and become taboos by association:
>referring to the hole you put a dead body in as a 'grave' (i.e., 'a hole
>dug in the ground') was originally euphemistic, but graves are now
>associated exclusively with death, so you have to use a word like 'plot'
>if you want to avoid unpleasantness.

Yes.

>> Plus-size instead of fat.
>
>No, 'plus-size' instead of 'oversize' or 'big and tall'. I doubt whether
>any retailer has ever used 'fat' to refer to clothing sizes.

Yes, but plus-size isn't limited to retailers anymore. I hear people
talking about women, and calling them plus-size, unrelated to clothes.

('Skinny'
>only seems to come up with reference to pants legs cut more narrowly
>than usual.)
>
>> Ethnic cleaning instead of ethicity-based murder.
>
>'Genocide' is the more usual term in English

And genocide is used improperly. Genocide is the murder or maybe some
other kind of killing of a of a whole ethnic group. AFAIK, there has
only been attempted genocide since, say, 1800, probably earlier.
Killing someone because he belongs to a particular ethnic group could be
called genocidal, in most or all cases, in which case the rest of the
sentence has to be adjusted since it's an adjective. not a noun.

Genocide is also the wrong word when there is no attempt or intention to
kill every member of the group. If someone kills 10 Frenchmen or 10
Arabs or 10 Kenyans, it's not genocide. Same thing if the number is
10,000, unless there is the intention or at least the hope to kill all
of them.

>- 'ethnicity-based murder'
>is a bit clunky.

Maybe so. But that's no reason to use either ethnic cleansing or
genocide, the first of which is the eupemism of murderers and the second
of which is the wrong word.

>> (What's amazing about this one is that even the enemies of the
>> ethnic-based murderers quickly and completely afaik adopted the term
>> ethnic cleansing. That is, they cooperated with the murderers in
>> minimizeing their murder, and that includes American tv and radio news
>> and newspapers too, I think, as well as American politicians of both
>> parties. There is nothing clean about murder.
>
>True, but 'murder' is much more than a simple descriptive term, as
>anyone discussing the legality of abortion knows all too well.

Abortion is an unusual case. It has nothing to do with ethnic-based**
murder. **If you don't like ethicity-based

>Throw the
>word 'murder' into a discussion of whether people dying from incurable
>diseases should have the right to ask doctors to kill them and see how
>long the discussion remains civil.

Again, unrelated.

>
>The problem is that there is no neutral term that means 'intentionally
>cause the death of another' - 'kill' is nearly as loaded as 'murder'.

Why are you looking for a neutral term? The people who coined "ethnic
cleansing" were murdering civilians, and every one who has used the term
for himself or his associates has been doing the same thing.

>
>Cf. the recent argument here over whether people from foreign countries who
>have entered the United States illegally should be called 'illegal aliens'
>or 'undocumented immigrants'. Neither term is neutral. To argue that the

That's true, but it's unrelated to killing. If you can't distininguish
teh most offensive of the phrases used for illegal immigrants from
murderers, you should work on that.

>first is more accurate overlooks the fact that 'illegal' is normally used
>to characterize actions, not individuals: if a group of people protesting
>are arrested for breaking the law, nobody calls them 'illegal protesters'.
>Characterizing a person as 'illegal' is no different from calling them an
>outlaw.
>
>The fact that there's no neutral term for the individuals indicates that

Find me anyone who claimed to be committing ethnic cleansing who wasn't
a murderer.

Why do you want a neutral term for murderers?

>there are no neutral attitudes towards the issue. From my point of view,
>that creates a frustrating inability to assess the accuracy of any given
>claim of fact about the issue: people on both sides are deliberately
>distorting reality, and it's damned difficult to know whether anyone on
>either side is reliable on the subject.


--

[Jerry Friedman]

On Friday, February 20, 2015 at 10:40:41 AM UTC-7, Jerry Friedman wrote:
...

> The question of whether there are any similes in "I, Too, am America"

...

Or "I, Too, Sing America". I quoted the last line instead of the title.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Friday, February 20, 2015 at 8:34:58 AM UTC-7, Adair Bordon wrote:
> My grandaughter has to do a metaphor:simile:euphemism identification of
> a half-dozen poems, e.g., "I, Too, Sing America, by Langston Hughes".
>
> She asked me for help, but, the entire set of poems (virtually every
> word and/or phrase) seems to be a metaphor for something (to me).
>
> For example, in "I, Too, America", "darker brother" is clearly a
> euphemism for "slave", and "I too, am America" is an methaphor
> for being a "citizen", etc.

...

I wouldn't agree with that. Hughes was writing about his own time,
when black people were legally citizens, not about the time of legal
slavery in America.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Richard Tobin]

In article <39d0e55b-9281-407a...@googlegroups.com>,

Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>I'll refer you to the monograph on Figurative Language by Michele
>Prandi that I'm editing, when it's published. Simile and metaphor are
>vastly different.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's an interpretation of the terms that
makes that true, but if Burns had written "My love is a red, red rose,
that's newly sprung in June" it would have made no difference to
anything other than the metre.

-- Richard

[Stan Brown]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:34:55 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon wrote:
>
> My grandaughter has to do a metaphor:simile:euphemism identification of
> a half-dozen poems, e.g., "I, Too, Sing America, by Langston Hughes".
>

Metaphor and simile are basically the same thing. "Her lips were as
red as blood" is a simile because it uses "like" or "as"; "Her lips
were ripe strawberries" is a metaphor because it doesn't.

But euphemism is not even on that spectrum. It's from Greek words
that mean well-speaking or proper-speaking. "Powder room" and "rest
room" are common American euphemisms for "toilet". "He passed [on, or
away]" is a euphemism for "he died". AHD4 defines euphemism as
"substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered
harsh, blunt, or offensive."

--
"The difference between the /almost right/ word and the /right/ word
is ... the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."
--Mark Twain
Stan Brown, Tompkins County, NY, USA http://OakRoadSystems.com

[Stan Brown]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:41 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon wrote:
> These are so similar, it's hard to distinguish between each.
>
> For example, a metaphor is a metaphor unless it's an euphemism?
> (i.e., a sugar-coated metaphor)
>

I don't think euphemism is close to the other two at all.

Metaphor and simile are basically the same; the difference is one of
form only. But the key aspect of euphemism is the intent to
substitute a less offensive or shocking term for a more offensive or
shocking term. When you ask "where can I wash my hands", it's not
because you feel a sudden urge to wash your hands, but because you
feel a sudden urge to do something else, which convention decrees is
not named in polite company.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
news:g79fea59cer2sb14m...@4ax.com:

> On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:09:36 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
> <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>>news:hnpeealncpsupcegv...@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:41 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon
>>> <Adair@not_my_real_email.com> wrote:
>>[snip]
>>>>- euphemism - the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague
>>>>expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.
>>>
>>> Yes, exactly.
>>> He passed to the other side, instead of died, because died sounds
>>> harsh. Mortician instead whatever preceded it. Funeral director
>>> instead of mortician.
>>
>>Many euphemisms for death-related matters probably stem from the
>>ancient fear that naming a thing will summon it: the Greek word from
>>which 'cemetery' derives literally means 'sleeping place'.
>
> Interesting.

The word in question is usually transliterated 'koimeterion': apparently
ancient Greeks used it to mean 'bedroom'.

>>Like words related to excrement and its disposal, words related to
>>death frequently start out as euphemisms and become taboos by
>>association: referring to the hole you put a dead body in as a 'grave'
>>(i.e., 'a hole dug in the ground') was originally euphemistic, but
>>graves are now associated exclusively with death, so you have to use a
>>word like 'plot' if you want to avoid unpleasantness.
>
> Yes.
>
>>> Plus-size instead of fat.
>>
>>No, 'plus-size' instead of 'oversize' or 'big and tall'. I doubt
>>whether any retailer has ever used 'fat' to refer to clothing sizes.
>
> Yes, but plus-size isn't limited to retailers anymore. I hear people
> talking about women, and calling them plus-size, unrelated to
> clothes.

In that case it would be replacing such euphemisms as 'big-boned'.
Calling people fat is rude.

> ('Skinny'
>>only seems to come up with reference to pants legs cut more narrowly
>>than usual.)
>>
>>> Ethnic cleaning instead of ethicity-based murder.
>>
>>'Genocide' is the more usual term in English
>
> And genocide is used improperly. Genocide is the murder or maybe
> some other kind of killing of a of a whole ethnic group. AFAIK,
> there has only been attempted genocide since, say, 1800, probably
> earlier. Killing someone because he belongs to a particular ethnic
> group could be called genocidal, in most or all cases, in which case
> the rest of the sentence has to be adjusted since it's an adjective.
> not a noun.

If you're going to split hairs, I should point out that 'ethnicity-based
murder' could easily refer to the murder of a single individual because
of his or her ethnicity. But after doing a little research I've found
that people who study the matter do consider ethnic cleansing to be
different from genocide. Of course, they also consider to be different
from ethnicity-based murder - see below.

> Genocide is also the wrong word when there is no attempt or intention
> to kill every member of the group. If someone kills 10 Frenchmen
> or 10 Arabs or 10 Kenyans, it's not genocide. Same thing if the
> number is 10,000, unless there is the intention or at least the hope
> to kill all of them.
>
>>- 'ethnicity-based murder' is a bit clunky.
>
> Maybe so. But that's no reason to use either ethnic cleansing or
> genocide, the first of which is the eupemism of murderers and the
> second of which is the wrong word.

Strictly speaking, 'murder' is also the wrong word. In the 'Final Report
of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council
Resolution 780 (1992)', ethnic cleansing was defined as 'a purposeful
policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by
violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another
ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.' Murder is one
of the weapons used, but far from the only one.

>>> (What's amazing about this one is that even the enemies of the
>>> ethnic-based murderers quickly and completely afaik adopted the term
>>> ethnic cleansing.

'Ethnic-based murderers' is even worse than 'ethnicity-based murderers.'

>>> That is, they cooperated with the murderers in minimizeing their
>>> murder, and that includes American tv and radio news and newspapers
>>> too, I think, as well as American politicians of both parties.
>>> There is nothing clean about murder.
>>
>>True, but 'murder' is much more than a simple descriptive term, as
>>anyone discussing the legality of abortion knows all too well.
>
> Abortion is an unusual case. It has nothing to do with
> ethnic-based** murder.

No? Forced abortions are often part of ethnic cleansing. As is forced
sterilization, which is disgusting but isn't murder by any definition,
making 'ethnicity-based murder' an even more problematic term.

> **If you don't like ethicity-based

As noted above, 'ethnic-based' is actually worse than 'ethnicity-based'.

>>Throw the word 'murder' into a discussion of whether people dying from
>>incurable diseases should have the right to ask doctors to kill them
>>and see how long the discussion remains civil.
>
> Again, unrelated.

The point was to demonstrate the volatility of the word 'murder'.

>>The problem is that there is no neutral term that means 'intentionally
>>cause the death of another' - 'kill' is nearly as loaded as 'murder'.
>
> Why are you looking for a neutral term? The people who coined
> "ethnic cleansing" were murdering civilians, and every one who has
> used the term for himself or his associates has been doing the same
> thing.

Among the many problems I have with the word 'murder' is the fact that
here in the United States we like to pretend that people who are accused
of a crime are not necessarily guilty of it. To assert, as you do, that
everyone associated with the term 'ethnic cleansing' is a murderer is to
condemn them all without trial.

Another problem is exemplified by your own comments: you're using the
word 'murder' to condemn people who used the term 'ethnic cleansing':
you characterized them as people who cooperate with murderers -
accessories after the fact, in other words. I see no point to that.

>>Cf. the recent argument here over whether people from foreign
>>countries who have entered the United States illegally should be
>>called 'illegal aliens' or 'undocumented immigrants'. Neither term is
>>neutral. To argue that the
>
> That's true, but it's unrelated to killing. If you can't
> distininguish teh most offensive of the phrases used for illegal
> immigrants from murderers, you should work on that.

I'm sorry if I confused you by using the abbreviation 'Cf.' It means
'compare'. The point is that the two arguments over terminology are
comparable: I didn't intend to suggest that the second argument was
related to killing.

>>first is more accurate overlooks the fact that 'illegal' is normally
>>used to characterize actions, not individuals: if a group of people
>>protesting are arrested for breaking the law, nobody calls them
>>'illegal protesters'. Characterizing a person as 'illegal' is no
>>different from calling them an outlaw.
>>
>>The fact that there's no neutral term for the individuals indicates
>>that
>
> Find me anyone who claimed to be committing ethnic cleansing who
> wasn't a murderer.

I'd have a sufficiently difficult time finding you anyone who claimed to
be committing ethnic cleansing. Nowadays people are mostly accused of
committing it.

If you're interested, you might want to note that the Commission of
Experts who were tasked by the U.N. with examination and analysis of the
evidence of whatever-you'd-like-to-call-it during the Bosnian War
defined ethnic cleansing as 'a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic
or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the
civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain
geographic areas.' As I noted above, murder is only one of the methods
employed, and not necessarily the worst.

Calling ethnic cleansing murder reduces the enormity of the crime.

> Why do you want a neutral term for murderers?

Why do you want to limit the crimes they committed to murder?

>>there are no neutral attitudes towards the issue. From my point of
>>view, that creates a frustrating inability to assess the accuracy of
>>any given claim of fact about the issue: people on both sides are
>>deliberately distorting reality, and it's damned difficult to know
>>whether anyone on either side is reliable on the subject.
--

S.O.P.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

ric...@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) wrote in news:mc8ecg$1mit$2
@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk:

It wouldn't have made any different to the metre, since what he actually
wrote was 'O my luve's like a red, red rose,' which has exactly the same
rhythm as 'My love is a red, red rose'.

It would arguably have made a different to the poem as a whole:

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!

Presumably Burns had a reason for restricting his use of simile to the
first verse. Someone who knows more about poetry than I could probably
make a good guess about it.
--
S.O.P.

[Steve Hayes]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 23:34:37 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

>A euphemism is substituting a "nice" word or phrase for an unpleasant
>one. Saying "passed on" instead of dead, or "downsized" instead of fired.
>
>I don't see any euphemisms n "I, too" either, but one could argue darker
>brother.

I was thinking about "downsized", and trying to think what the name
for such a figure of speech is. Meiosis? No, that seems to be the
opposite, making smaller instead of bigger. The Wikipedia article give
"The Pond", much used in aue, as an example.

The example I was thinking of is terms like "the kettle's boiling"
when you mean that the water in the kettle is boiling.

When the firm one is working for downsizes or retrenches, then if one
is laid off one says "I've been downsized" or "I've been retrenched".

Perhaps it is meiosis, applying the bigger term to the smaller.

[Peter T. Daniels]

"Would have made no difference" how? there's an immense cognitive difference
between saying something is something and something is like something!

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, February 20, 2015 at 6:35:19 PM UTC-5, Lewis wrote:

> A simile is a comparison using like or as. (There are none in "I, too")
>
> That bear was as big as a house!
>
> A metaphor is the same thing, without like or as.
>
> That was house-sized bear!

Neither of those is either a metaphor or a simile. They are both perfectly
straightforward comparisons. They are _exaggerations_.

[Richard Tobin]

In article <10bfcfc4-1dba-486f...@googlegroups.com>,

Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>> I wouldn't be surprised if there's an interpretation of the terms that
>> makes that true, but if Burns had written "My love is a red, red rose,
>> that's newly sprung in June" it would have made no difference to
>> anything other than the metre.

>"Would have made no difference" how? there's an immense cognitive difference
>between saying something is something and something is like something!

I think the poem is evidence that there isn't.

If he'd said "my love is a red rose" it would not have been literally
true. You wouldn't actually think that she *was* a rose. It would
just be another way of comparing her attributes to those of a rose.
Both are formulaic ways of introducing a comparison.

-- Richard

[Richard Tobin]

In article <mc9nhb$2ab9$2...@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>, I wrote:

>Both are formulaic ways of introducing a comparison.

"Comparison" isn't right here. The idea is to suggest that the
metaphrand (who the reader doesn't know) has attributes similar to
those of the metaphier (which the reader is presumed to be familiar
with). "A is B" and "A is like B" are both ways of putting A and B
into the metaphrand-metaphier relationship.

[The terms "metaphier" and "metaphrand" were coined by Julian Jaynes.
He calls the relevant attributes of the metaphier the "paraphiers" and
the implied attributes of the metaphrand "paraphrands".]

-- Richard

[Peter T. Daniels]

Fortunately, little or nothing from Julian Jaynes has been taken seriously,
except by some cultists who seem to have been maintaining a web site since
his death. The metaph- terms were clear from context and looked like nonce
coinages.

The assertion, however, is still incorrect. Accepting it is tantamount to
denying the First Amendment -- that if you (say) express approval of terrorists'
aims, such as establishing a Muslim-free America or a Jew-free France, you
_ipso facto_ are a terrorist.

Was Thomas Paine a terrorist? Because he articulated the philosophy favored
by the American partisans?

In the Broadway show *1776*, John Hancock urges the others to quickly sign
the Declaration of Independence because his was the only name on it so he
would be hanged as a traitor if the document were found as it then stood.
There's no reason to suppose he actually said that, but it's a clever way
of making the point. Over Here we revere that document. But a similar list
of grievances against the current US government would not remotely be
considered treasonous -- it would in fact be protected as one of the four
most basic rights guaranteed in the Constitution.

[Jerry Friedman]

I wonder whether he knew the terms "tenor" and "vehicle" that I. A.
Richards introduced in 1936. The tenor is Jaynes's metaphrand.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Richard Tobin]

In article <95b15e14-5377-4059...@googlegroups.com>,

Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>The assertion, however, is still incorrect. Accepting it is tantamount to
>denying the First Amendment -- that if you (say) express approval of
>terrorists'
>aims, such as establishing a Muslim-free America or a Jew-free France, you
>_ipso facto_ are a terrorist.
>
>Was Thomas Paine a terrorist? Because he articulated the philosophy favored
>by the American partisans?
>
>In the Broadway show *1776*, John Hancock urges the others to quickly sign
>the Declaration of Independence because his was the only name on it so he
>would be hanged as a traitor if the document were found as it then stood.
>There's no reason to suppose he actually said that, but it's a clever way
>of making the point. Over Here we revere that document. But a similar list
>of grievances against the current US government would not remotely be
>considered treasonous -- it would in fact be protected as one of the four
>most basic rights guaranteed in the Constitution.

Are you suggesting that if Burns had said that his love was a red,
red rose he would have been guilty of libel?

-- Richard

[Peter T. Daniels]

Probably just miscegenation.

[Peter T. Daniels]

My author criticizes the two pairs of terms that are current in the literature
-- that's one of them -- and chooses to use "tenor" from this pair and the other
one from the other pair. (I'm well out of the Metaphor chapter so I don't
recall the other source or term.) I suspect his reviewers will criticize that choice.

[Richard Tobin]

In article <mcacqa$ifk$1...@news.albasani.net>,

Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> [The terms "metaphier" and "metaphrand" were coined by Julian Jaynes.
>> He calls the relevant attributes of the metaphier the "paraphiers" and
>> the implied attributes of the metaphrand "paraphrands".]

>I wonder whether he knew the terms "tenor" and "vehicle" that I. A.
>Richards introduced in 1936.

He did, and in a footnote says

This distinction is not connotatively the same as I. A. Richards'
'tenor' and 'vehicle'.

Not being familiar with Richards's distinction, I don't know what he's
getting at.

-- Richard

[Don Phillipson]

> micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in

>> He passed to the other side, instead of died, because died sounds
>> harsh.

This is a literary quotation (from Bunyan, the death of Mr. Standfast.)

>> Mortician instead whatever preceded it. Funeral director
>> instead of mortician.

The British precursor was "undertaker," itself obviously a
euphemism (since no British undertakers undertook in
1825 anything except funerals.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Jennifer Murphy]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 14:45:23 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
<e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:

>> micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>
>>> He passed to the other side, instead of died, because died sounds
>>> harsh.
>
>This is a literary quotation (from Bunyan, the death of Mr. Standfast.)
>
>>> Mortician instead whatever preceded it. Funeral director
>>> instead of mortician.
>
>The British precursor was "undertaker," itself obviously a
>euphemism (since no British undertakers undertook in
>1825 anything except funerals.)

In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
father owned the local mortuary.

They also provided all the little Christmas song booklets for the school
and community. You would think that with only one mortuary in town, they
wouldn't need that much advertising. That didn't occur to me at the
time.

[Peter Moylan]

On 22/02/15 10:12, Jennifer Murphy wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 14:45:23 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
> <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>>> micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>>
>>>> He passed to the other side, instead of died, because died
>>>> sounds harsh.
>>
>> This is a literary quotation (from Bunyan, the death of Mr.
>> Standfast.)
>>
>>>> Mortician instead whatever preceded it. Funeral director
>>>> instead of mortician.
>>
>> The British precursor was "undertaker," itself obviously a
>> euphemism (since no British undertakers undertook in 1825 anything
>> except funerals.)
>
> In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
> father owned the local mortuary.

In our town the undertaker was also the proprietor of the hardware
store; Diggle by name. We had a saying "If your heart won't wriggle,
call Old Diggle".

Old Diggle was a bit too rough for some people. People started going to
a neighbouring town to be buried.

> They also provided all the little Christmas song booklets for the
> school and community. You would think that with only one mortuary in
> town, they wouldn't need that much advertising. That didn't occur to
> me at the time.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
JE SUIS CHARLIE

[Tony Cooper]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:12:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
<JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:

>On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 14:45:23 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
><e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>>> micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>>
>>>> He passed to the other side, instead of died, because died sounds
>>>> harsh.
>>
>>This is a literary quotation (from Bunyan, the death of Mr. Standfast.)
>>
>>>> Mortician instead whatever preceded it. Funeral director
>>>> instead of mortician.
>>
>>The British precursor was "undertaker," itself obviously a
>>euphemism (since no British undertakers undertook in
>>1825 anything except funerals.)
>
>In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
>father owned the local mortuary.

There was Digger O'Dell the friendly undertaker from the radio program
"The Life of Riley".

>
>They also provided all the little Christmas song booklets for the school
>and community. You would think that with only one mortuary in town, they
>wouldn't need that much advertising. That didn't occur to me at the
>time.

Stuck in a mirror in our bedroom are two "Mass Cards" from Fitzgerald
Funeral Home; one for wife's father (d 1965) and one for my wife's
mother (d 1979). If a Catholic died in my wife's home town in those
days, Fitzgerald's handled the arrangements. They didn't need the
advertisement, but a Mass Card for the deceased was always provided by
Fitzgerald's.

While we've retained only the two, a Catholic family back when would
often have dozens of Mass Cards stuck - between the glass and the
frame - in mirrors and framed photographs. I've never seen them
displayed any other way.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL

[Richard Tobin]

In article <g24iea5mfgs2fj27n...@4ax.com>,

Jennifer Murphy <JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:

>In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
>father owned the local mortuary.

There's a pub in Edinburgh known as The Diggers because of its proximity
to two cemeteries.

-- Richard

[Steve Hayes]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:12:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
<JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:

>In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
>father owned the local mortuary.
>
>They also provided all the little Christmas song booklets for the school
>and community. You would think that with only one mortuary in town, they
>wouldn't need that much advertising. That didn't occur to me at the
>time.

I tend to think of "mortuary" as a cold storage room in a hosputal
where dead bodies are kept until they are collected for burial etc,
and sometimes pending postmortems.

I've sometimes heard it called the morgue, perhaps by those to whom
"mortuary" means the undertaker's premises, but again, to me "morgue"
means the place in newspaper offices where old stories are filed for
future reference.

[Cheryl]

On 2015-02-21 11:42 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:12:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
> <JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:
>
>> In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
>> father owned the local mortuary.
>>
>> They also provided all the little Christmas song booklets for the school
>> and community. You would think that with only one mortuary in town, they
>> wouldn't need that much advertising. That didn't occur to me at the
>> time.
>
> I tend to think of "mortuary" as a cold storage room in a hosputal
> where dead bodies are kept until they are collected for burial etc,
> and sometimes pending postmortems.
>
> I've sometimes heard it called the morgue, perhaps by those to whom
> "mortuary" means the undertaker's premises, but again, to me "morgue"
> means the place in newspaper offices where old stories are filed for
> future reference.
>
>
>
>

I don't tend to use "mortuary", and although I know the word I'm a bit
vague on whether it's the hospital or commercial facility. For me, the
place in the hospital where they keep dead bodies temporarily is the
morgue, and the place where they are held pending burial, cremation
etc., is the funeral home (or, locally, the name of the business -
Carnell's, Caul's, Bartlett's).

I know the newspaper archive meaning for "morgue", but I've never
actually used it.

--
Cheryl

[micky]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:12:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
<JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:

>On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 14:45:23 -0500, "Don Phillipson"
><e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>>> micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>>
>>>> He passed to the other side, instead of died, because died sounds
>>>> harsh.
>>
>>This is a literary quotation (from Bunyan, the death of Mr. Standfast.)
>>
>>>> Mortician instead whatever preceded it. Funeral director
>>>> instead of mortician.
>>
>>The British precursor was "undertaker," itself obviously a

In the US too. At any rate, that was the word I was trying to think of
when I said whateer preceded it.

>>euphemism (since no British undertakers undertook in
>>1825 anything except funerals.)
>
>In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
>father owned the local mortuary.

I went to summer school at another high school (which is why I never met
him before or saw him again, after the summer) and one of the guys there
had a father who did that. He must have helped too. He went into
detail about some of what they did and it is too graphic for a family
newsgroup. Since I was in a carpool and left right away, he must
have discussed it in class. Economics.

>They also provided all the little Christmas song booklets for the school
>and community. You would think that with only one mortuary in town, they
>wouldn't need that much advertising. That didn't occur to me at the
>time.

They want to look like more than undertakers, like positive contributors
to the town, not just those who solve some serious problem. Not just
for their image in the eyes of others but in their own eyes too. And
not just in business but in their personal lives. And there are other
reasons for providing song books.

--
Please say where you live, or what
area's English you are asking about.
So your question or answer makes sense.
. .
I have lived all my life in the USA,
Western Pa. Indianapolis, Chicago,
Brooklyn, Baltimore.

[micky]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 07:49:24 -0330, Cheryl <cper...@mun.ca> wrote:

>On 2015-02-21 11:42 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:12:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
>> <JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
>>> father owned the local mortuary.
>>>
>>> They also provided all the little Christmas song booklets for the school
>>> and community. You would think that with only one mortuary in town, they
>>> wouldn't need that much advertising. That didn't occur to me at the
>>> time.
>>
>> I tend to think of "mortuary" as a cold storage room in a hosputal
>> where dead bodies are kept until they are collected for burial etc,
>> and sometimes pending postmortems.
>>
>> I've sometimes heard it called the morgue, perhaps by those to whom
>> "mortuary" means the undertaker's premises, but again, to me "morgue"
>> means the place in newspaper offices where old stories are filed for
>> future reference.

I'm sure that was a later meaning.

>I don't tend to use "mortuary", and although I know the word I'm a bit
>vague on whether it's the hospital or commercial facility. For me, the
>place in the hospital where they keep dead bodies temporarily is the
>morgue, and the place where they are held pending burial, cremation
>etc., is the funeral home (or, locally, the name of the business -
>Carnell's, Caul's, Bartlett's).
>
>I know the newspaper archive meaning for "morgue", but I've never
>actually used it.

In 1970, I was invited to work for a primary congressional candidate,
about 70 miles from where I lived. When I got to the town, I went
straight to the newspaper, asked for the morgue, and I read just about
every article they had run about him and his main opponent and the third
guy for the previous year. They had approximately the same views.

Then I went to the opponent's store-front office, complete with lots of
windows onto a main downtown street, and they were all busy stuffing
envelopes so I did that for an hour, chatting with other volunteers, to
see if there was any reason to favor him or disfavor the one I was
invited by (well, by someone who worked for him.) Again, nothing came
up.

So I worked for the first one all summer. In the middle of the summer,
there was a debate and some of us went, and I think a worker in the
other campaign might have recognized me from the hour stuffing
envelopes, and he may have concluded I was a spy then. On the other
hand, maybe none of that happened. I didnt' know what to do, and I
didnt do anything, just left as planned. I hope he didn't tell eveyone
I was a spy. I really wasn't. I didn't ask any questions that would
have helped the firsr guy, and I didn't learn anything that would, and I
hadn't tried to.

They really did have the same positions. We won the primary by 8
votes out of 50,000 cast, and on the recount, we lost by 5. That guy
won the general election too.

And I was from out of town and didn't know many people, but the day
after the election I talked to 3 or4 people, the landlord of the
unfurnished apartment for out-of-town volunteers, the owner of the
corner grocery, etc. who said they had planned to vote for my candidate
but didn't get around to voting.

[Janet]

In article <fuhiead16909fvohs...@4ax.com>,
haye...@telkomsa.net says...

> I tend to think of "mortuary" as a cold storage room in a hosputal
> where dead bodies are kept until they are collected for burial etc,
> and sometimes pending postmortems.
>
> I've sometimes heard it called the morgue, perhaps by those to whom
> "mortuary" means the undertaker's premises, but again, to me "morgue"
> means the place in newspaper offices where old stories are filed for
> future reference.

Back in the 60's, my husband had a student-vacation job in a hospital
morgue where his duties included collecting dead patients from the
wards, and taking amputated limbs/bits to be burned in the hospital
incinerator.

His job title was "mortuary attendant".

Janet

[micky]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 01:58:51 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"

I appreciate your research. But my failure to consider everything
doesn't make the problem I did consider go away.

The problem I'm addressing is the use of "cleansing" which has as
positive a meaning and connotation as almost any word out there to refer
to murder and other criminal acts used to force people from their homes.

>
>>>> (What's amazing about this one is that even the enemies of the
>>>> ethnic-based murderers quickly and completely afaik adopted the term
>>>> ethnic cleansing.
>
>'Ethnic-based murderers' is even worse than 'ethnicity-based murderers.'

Okay.

>
>>>> That is, they cooperated with the murderers in minimizeing their
>>>> murder, and that includes American tv and radio news and newspapers
>>>> too, I think, as well as American politicians of both parties.
>>>> There is nothing clean about murder.
>>>
>>>True, but 'murder' is much more than a simple descriptive term, as
>>>anyone discussing the legality of abortion knows all too well.
>>
>> Abortion is an unusual case. It has nothing to do with
>> ethnic-based** murder.
>
>No? Forced abortions are often part of ethnic cleansing.

Before you said abortion. THAT is an unusual case. Now you've changed
it to "forced abortion". That is clear. That is either murder or
akin to murder**, depending on one's views of the matter. If it's
murder, it comes under "murder", which is the word I used in the first
place. **Although maybe some would say it's even less than that.

> As is forced
>sterilization, which is disgusting but isn't murder by any definition,
>making 'ethnicity-based murder' an even more problematic term.

I've certainly heard of forced sterilization but I think you're mixed up
if you think it is part of so-called EC, every example of which I've
heard of is done over months or 2 or 3 years. People are not afraid of
the enemy's babies but of their adults. The effects of forced
sterilization take almost two decades to be noticed. Anyhow, it's at
most the smallest part of EC and in this thread part of your obsession
with quibbling about the deflation of EC, instead of noticing the
denotation and connotation of "cleansing".

>
>> **If you don't like ethicity-based
>
>As noted above, 'ethnic-based' is actually worse than 'ethnicity-based'.

I used "ethnic" because it's a word from the original phrase. Do you
think it's a problem in the original phrase? For example, do you think
ethnic cleansing makes less sense than ethnicity-based cleansing?

>
>>>Throw the word 'murder' into a discussion of whether people dying from
>>>incurable diseases should have the right to ask doctors to kill them
>>>and see how long the discussion remains civil.
>>
>> Again, unrelated.
>
>The point was to demonstrate the volatility of the word 'murder'.
>
>>>The problem is that there is no neutral term that means 'intentionally
>>>cause the death of another' - 'kill' is nearly as loaded as 'murder'.
>>
>> Why are you looking for a neutral term? The people who coined
>> "ethnic cleansing" were murdering civilians, and every one who has
>> used the term for himself or his associates has been doing the same
>> thing.
>
>Among the many problems I have with the word 'murder' is the fact that
>here in the United States we like to pretend that people who are accused
>of a crime are not necessarily guilty of it. To assert, as you do, that
>everyone associated with the term 'ethnic cleansing' is a murderer is to
>condemn them all without trial.

I didn't say anything about "everyone associated with the term".
When ISIS is murdering civilians, burning a Jordanian pilot alive, not
"everyone associated with ISIS" has actually killed anyone Some just
do the cooking or buy the food. But ISIS has still murdered thousands
of people and burned one or more people alive. The same thing applies
to those who said they were doing EC. Don't exaggerate what I said so
you can seem to refute what you seem to think I said.

>
>Another problem is exemplified by your own comments: you're using the
>word 'murder' to condemn people who used the term 'ethnic cleansing':
>you characterized them as people who cooperate with murderers -
>accessories after the fact, in other words.

"in other words"!!! Never use "in other words" to refer to someone
else' s words. People who do that almost invariably misstate what the
other person meant, as you did here, big time. (If you want to use "in
other words" to reiterate what you yourself meant, that's fine.)

Don't be ridiculous. Mere cooperation by using the same phrase as
ethnic murderers did, by the press or by politiicians in the US of both
parties does not make them accessories after the fact. It would be
stupid enough if you said that, but to try to put those words in my
mouth is wholely improper.

Their use of the word is a mixture of lack of thinking, foolishness,
stupidity, following others like sheep, and more evidence that news
writers aren't what they used to be and politicians aren't what they
ought to be. But they're not accessories.

> I see no point to that.

And I never said it.

>
>>>Cf. the recent argument here over whether people from foreign
>>>countries who have entered the United States illegally should be
>>>called 'illegal aliens' or 'undocumented immigrants'. Neither term is
>>>neutral. To argue that the
>>
>> That's true, but it's unrelated to killing. If you can't
>> distininguish teh most offensive of the phrases used for illegal
>> immigrants from murderers, you should work on that.
>
>I'm sorry if I confused you by using the abbreviation 'Cf.' It means
>'compare'.

You didn't confuse me and I know what it means.

>The point is that the two arguments over terminology are
>comparable:

Terminology can and should be clarified, but so far all you've done is
avoid any discussion of using a positive-sounding word like cleansing to
refer to murder and associated acts. It's not just a euphemism. It's
disgusting,

>I didn't intend to suggest that the second argument was
>related to killing.

Good.

>>>first is more accurate overlooks the fact that 'illegal' is normally
>>>used to characterize actions, not individuals: if a group of people
>>>protesting are arrested for breaking the law, nobody calls them
>>>'illegal protesters'. Characterizing a person as 'illegal' is no
>>>different from calling them an outlaw.
>>>
>>>The fact that there's no neutral term for the individuals indicates
>>>that
>>
>> Find me anyone who claimed to be committing ethnic cleansing who
>> wasn't a murderer.
>
>I'd have a sufficiently difficult time finding you anyone who claimed to
>be committing ethnic cleansing. Nowadays people are mostly accused of
>committing it.

Skip nowadays. Who originated the word? Were they not murderers?

>If you're interested, you might want to note that the Commission of
>Experts who were tasked by the U.N. with examination and analysis of the
>evidence of whatever-you'd-like-to-call-it during the Bosnian War
>defined ethnic cleansing as 'a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic
>or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the
>civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain
>geographic areas.'

Instead of defining it, they should have said what I've said. It's
another example of blindness and failure by the U.N.

> As I noted above, murder is only one of the methods
>employed, and not necessarily the worst.

You are stuck in a rut making the point that it's not just murder. My
original post was not a treatise that covered everything about so-called
EC. It was a condemnation and you still haven't managed to condemn it
in the slightest. Instead you want a neutral word for murder and
related acts that are a part of so-called EC.

>Calling ethnic cleansing murder reduces the enormity of the crime.

Nowhere near as much as calling it cleansing does.

>> Why do you want a neutral term for murderers?
>
>Why do you want to limit the crimes they committed to murder?

You didn't answer my question. They all committed plenty of murders.
Why do you want a neutral term for murderers and those who commit
related crimes????

And you claim you want a neutral word, but you're endorsing a positive
word. Why do you think Serbians (I think it was) chose "cleansing"??
Because it sounds good. Don't you get that? Why are you endorsing
a positive word? Why don't you want a negative word for murder and
other crimes?

You're still stuck in that rut. By now you should know that I include
all the other crimes that are a part of it. So what's your comeback
now.

When you constantly bring up other, lesser crimes, you seem like an
apologist for murder. Remember that if you have occasion to discuss
this with someone else.

>>>The fact that there's no neutral term for the individuals indicates
>>>that

>>>there are no neutral attitudes towards the issue.

The issue = EC?

I would be horrified if there were neutral attitudes towards murder of
civilians, destruction of their homes, rape, etc. meant to force
innocent civilians from their homes and their land. Do you actually
expect someone to have a neutral attitude towards that?

Also the definition you found: "a purposeful policy designed by one

ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring
means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from

certain geographic areas." Do you actually expect someone to have a
neutral attitude towards that?

>>> From my point of
>>>view, that creates a frustrating inability to assess the accuracy of
>>>any given claim of fact about the issue:

I don't see why.

>>> people on both sides are
>>>deliberately distorting reality,

I see deliberate distortion and hatred of murder etc. as separate,
independent things.

>>> and it's damned difficult to know
>>>whether anyone on either side is reliable on the subject.

What has this got to do with using a pretty word like cleansing to
describe murder and other crimes?

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, February 21, 2015 at 7:34:06 PM UTC-5, Tony Cooper wrote:

> Stuck in a mirror in our bedroom are two "Mass Cards" from Fitzgerald
> Funeral Home; one for wife's father (d 1965) and one for my wife's
> mother (d 1979). If a Catholic died in my wife's home town in those
> days, Fitzgerald's handled the arrangements. They didn't need the
> advertisement, but a Mass Card for the deceased was always provided by
> Fitzgerald's.

"Provided"? You can be sure they billed for them.

> While we've retained only the two, a Catholic family back when would
> often have dozens of Mass Cards stuck - between the glass and the
> frame - in mirrors and framed photographs. I've never seen them
> displayed any other way.

Only Catholics are morbid that way any more.

A fifty-year-old Mass Card seems rather extreme. How many mirrors has it
been transferred between during your moves around the country and redecorating
your bedroom?

[Jennifer Murphy]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 07:57:04 -0500, micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com>

wrote:

>On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:12:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
><JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:

>I went to summer school at another high school (which is why I never met
>him before or saw him again, after the summer) and one of the guys there
>had a father who did that. He must have helped too. He went into
>detail about some of what they did and it is too graphic for a family
>newsgroup.

Which newsgroup is that? And which family?

[Tony Cooper]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 07:11:23 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>On Saturday, February 21, 2015 at 7:34:06 PM UTC-5, Tony Cooper wrote:
>
>> Stuck in a mirror in our bedroom are two "Mass Cards" from Fitzgerald
>> Funeral Home; one for wife's father (d 1965) and one for my wife's
>> mother (d 1979). If a Catholic died in my wife's home town in those
>> days, Fitzgerald's handled the arrangements. They didn't need the
>> advertisement, but a Mass Card for the deceased was always provided by
>> Fitzgerald's.
>
>"Provided"? You can be sure they billed for them.

All firms include their costs of advertising in their price. It's too
late to determine if it was a separate billing on invoices, but I
don't think so.

>> While we've retained only the two, a Catholic family back when would
>> often have dozens of Mass Cards stuck - between the glass and the
>> frame - in mirrors and framed photographs. I've never seen them
>> displayed any other way.
>
>Only Catholics are morbid that way any more.
>
>A fifty-year-old Mass Card seems rather extreme. How many mirrors has it
>been transferred between during your moves around the country and redecorating
>your bedroom?

Only the one. We purchased our bedroom suite through the Merchandise
Mart in Chicago when we were married in 1964. We had a friend who was
an interior decorator and had access to the Merchandise Mart. It was
good quality stuff when we bought it, and shows no sign of being
either out-dated or worn to this day.

The Merchandise Mart is not a store. Representatives of furniture
makers had their offices in the Mart, and any purchases through the
Mart (at the time) were invoiced by the furniture manufacturer and
shipped from the manufacturer. In our case, from Basset Furniture in
Virginia.

I don't know if the Mart still functions this way or not. In those
days, you could not go to the Mart unless you were working with a
decorator.

Our living room furniture was purchased the same way, but from Hekman
(Howard Miller) in North Carolina. The tables are still as we
purchased them, but the couch and chairs have been reupholstered
several times over the years using the original frames.

[micky]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 09:41:56 -0800, Jennifer Murphy

<JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:

>On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 07:57:04 -0500, micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:12:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
>><JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:
>
>>I went to summer school at another high school (which is why I never met
>>him before or saw him again, after the summer) and one of the guys there
>>had a father who did that. He must have helped too. He went into
>>detail about some of what they did and it is too graphic for a family
>>newsgroup.
>
>Which newsgroup is that?

This one!

>And which family?

The Munsters?

Okay -- in case your imagination is worse than what he actually said --
what he said, in not necessarily his words, which I have forgotten after
50 years, was that the anal sphincter, which apparently is the opposite
of relaxed (whatever the word for that is) for 99% of the time, for up
to 100+ years in a row (an amazing feat, imo), relaxes some time after
death, and when the body is moved much of what is inside comes out.

I don't remember if this apples to the bladder too.

[micky]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 18:20:42 -0500, Stan Brown
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:41 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon wrote:
>> These are so similar, it's hard to distinguish between each.
>>
>> For example, a metaphor is a metaphor unless it's an euphemism?
>> (i.e., a sugar-coated metaphor)
>>
>
>I don't think euphemism is close to the other two at all.
>
>Metaphor and simile are basically the same; the difference is one of
>form only. But the key aspect of euphemism is the intent to
>substitute a less offensive or shocking term for a more offensive or
>shocking term. When you ask "where can I wash my hands", it's not
>because you feel a sudden urge to wash your hands, but because you
>feel a sudden urge to do something else, which convention decrees is
>not named in polite company.

What if I want to powder my nose?

Bruno

[charles]

In article <th7keahbubk4aptfu...@4ax.com>,

micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 18:20:42 -0500, Stan Brown
> <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> >On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 15:47:41 +0000 (UTC), Adair Bordon wrote:
> >> These are so similar, it's hard to distinguish between each.
> >>
> >> For example, a metaphor is a metaphor unless it's an euphemism?
> >> (i.e., a sugar-coated metaphor)
> >>
> >
> >I don't think euphemism is close to the other two at all.
> >
> >Metaphor and simile are basically the same; the difference is one of
> >form only. But the key aspect of euphemism is the intent to
> >substitute a less offensive or shocking term for a more offensive or
> >shocking term. When you ask "where can I wash my hands", it's not
> >because you feel a sudden urge to wash your hands, but because you
> >feel a sudden urge to do something else, which convention decrees is
> >not named in polite company.

> What if I want to powder my nose?

don't do it before you've dried your hands

--
From KT24 in Surrey

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

[Jerry Friedman]

On 2/20/15 9:21 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 23:34:37 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
> <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>
>> A euphemism is substituting a "nice" word or phrase for an unpleasant
>> one. Saying "passed on" instead of dead, or "downsized" instead of fired.
>>
>> I don't see any euphemisms n "I, too" either, but one could argue darker
>> brother.
>
> I was thinking about "downsized", and trying to think what the name
> for such a figure of speech is. Meiosis? No, that seems to be the
> opposite, making smaller instead of bigger. The Wikipedia article give
> "The Pond", much used in aue, as an example.

(And unfortunately capitalizes the t. You can't tell in that sentence,
but the next sentence uses "The Ditch" for the Tasman Sea.)

> The example I was thinking of is terms like "the kettle's boiling"
> when you mean that the water in the kettle is boiling.

"The container for the thing contained" is a standard subclass of
metonymy, the substitution of a word that denotes a related thing.

> When the firm one is working for downsizes or retrenches, then if one
> is laid off one says "I've been downsized" or "I've been retrenched".

I don't know a name for that one. Maybe it's a kind of metonymy.

> Perhaps it is meiosis, applying the bigger term to the smaller.

Not meiosis as I know it.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Don Phillipson]

"Jennifer Murphy" <JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote in message
news:g24iea5mfgs2fj27n...@4ax.com...

>>The British precursor was "undertaker," itself obviously a euphemism
>>

> In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
> father owned the local mortuary.
>
> They also provided all the little Christmas song booklets for the school
> and community. You would think that with only one mortuary in town, they
> wouldn't need that much advertising.

Perhaps normal in England in the 1950s, cf. the book/play/film Billy
Liar (1959). The protagonist works at the local undertaker's, and one
of his tasks in December is to deliver free calendars to potential
customers.

[Jerry Friedman]

On 2/20/15 4:01 PM, Richard Tobin wrote:
> In article <39d0e55b-9281-407a...@googlegroups.com>,

> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>

>> I'll refer you to the monograph on Figurative Language by Michele
>> Prandi that I'm editing, when it's published. Simile and metaphor are
>> vastly different.
>
> I wouldn't be surprised if there's an interpretation of the terms that
> makes that true, but if Burns had written "My love is a red, red rose,
> that's newly sprung in June" it would have made no difference to
> anything other than the metre.

I don't know about "no difference". There might be a different mental
picture. And without the "like" it's a little more all-encompassing,
and it might make the transition to the next trope a little more
jarring. However, the difference doesn't mean a simile isn't a kind of
metaphor.

A critic named Marie Louise von Glinski writes, "The automatic coupling
of simile and metaphor blurs the profound differences between the two,
viewing them as interchangeable when they are not."

https://books.google.com/books?id=cBsLBJPSdm8C&pg=PA9

No, it doesn't. You can think of simile as a kind of metaphor without
seeing them as interchangeable. You can think of an SUV as a kind of
car without seeing SUVs and other cars as interchangeable.

Incidentally, before I looked at that book I didn't know that
classifying simile as a kind of metaphor goes back to Aristotle.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Sneaky O. Possum]

micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
news:387heah8fqfmjnu2h...@4ax.com:

> On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 01:58:51 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
> <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>>news:g79fea59cer2sb14m...@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:09:36 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
>>> <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>>>>news:hnpeealncpsupcegv...@4ax.com:

[snip]

>>Strictly speaking, 'murder' is also the wrong word. In the 'Final
>>Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security
>>Council Resolution 780 (1992)', ethnic cleansing was defined as 'a
>>purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove
>>by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of
>>another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.'
>>Murder is one of the weapons used, but far from the only one.
>
> I appreciate your research. But my failure to consider everything
> doesn't make the problem I did consider go away.

Problems that don't exist can't go away.

> The problem I'm addressing is the use of "cleansing" which has as
> positive a meaning and connotation as almost any word out there to
> refer to murder and other criminal acts used to force people from
> their homes.

I don't find either the meaning or the connotation of 'cleansing' to be
especially positive, but more importantly, 'ethnic cleansing' is far
from the only phrase is the language in which an ostensibly positive
word associated with cleanliness plays a negative role: consider the
phrase 'took him to the cleaners' (=cheated him out of everything he
owned). If somebody says that a guy robbed a bank and made a clean
getaway, they are not suggesting there was anything positive about the
fact that he escaped.

Moreover, the term 'ethnic cleansing' was evidently not coined as a
euphemism, and the first attested uses came from people opposed to the
practice - see below.

But I'm more interested in determining what convincing people who are
opposed to ethnic cleansing to use the term 'ethnicity-based murder'
would accomplish. Would it help reduce the incidence of ethnicity-based
murder? Or strengthen the prosecution of people accused of it?

Would a single ethnicity-based murder have been prevented if reporters
and politicians had always used the phrase 'ethnicity-based murder'
instead of 'ethnic cleansing'?

[snip]

>>>>True, but 'murder' is much more than a simple descriptive term, as
>>>>anyone discussing the legality of abortion knows all too well.
>>>
>>> Abortion is an unusual case. It has nothing to do with
>>> ethnic-based** murder.
>>
>>No? Forced abortions are often part of ethnic cleansing.
>
> Before you said abortion. THAT is an unusual case. Now you've
> changed it to "forced abortion". That is clear. That is either
> murder or akin to murder**, depending on one's views of the matter.

That's incoherent. If voluntary abortion is neither murder nor akin to
murder, how can forcible abortion be? I view it as a crime against the
woman who's forced to have the procedure: it would be just as bad to
forcibly prevent a woman who chose to abort her foetus from doing so.

> If it's murder, it comes under "murder", which is the word I used in
> the first place. **Although maybe some would say it's even less
> than that.

I think there are worse crimes than murder.

>> As is forced sterilization, which is disgusting but isn't murder by
>> any definition, making 'ethnicity-based murder' an even more
>> problematic term.
>
> I've certainly heard of forced sterilization but I think you're mixed
> up if you think it is part of so-called EC, every example of which
> I've heard of is done over months or 2 or 3 years.

That would provide plenty of time to implement a program of forced
sterilization.

> People are not afraid of the enemy's babies but of their adults.

Untrue. The whole point of ethnic cleansing is to remove everyone of a
specific ethnicity, regardless of their age. There were abundant
examples of infants, small children, and pregnant women being murdered
during the wars in the former Yugoslavia that brought the phrase 'ethnic
cleansing' into common use.

[snip]

>>> Why are you looking for a neutral term? The people who coined
>>> "ethnic cleansing" were murdering civilians, and every one who has
>>> used the term for himself or his associates has been doing the same
>>> thing.
>>
>>Among the many problems I have with the word 'murder' is the fact that
>>here in the United States we like to pretend that people who are
>>accused of a crime are not necessarily guilty of it. To assert, as you
>>do, that everyone associated with the term 'ethnic cleansing' is a
>>murderer is to condemn them all without trial.
>
> I didn't say anything about "everyone associated with the term".

In my opinion that's an entirely reasonable interpretation of your claim
that 'every one who has used the term for himself or his associates has
been doing the same thing,' i.e., murdering civilians.

> When ISIS is murdering civilians, burning a Jordanian pilot alive, not
> "everyone associated with ISIS" has actually killed anyone Some just
> do the cooking or buy the food. But ISIS has still murdered
> thousands of people and burned one or more people alive.

That irrelevant to the claim under discussion, i.e., 'The people who

coined "ethnic cleansing" were murdering civilians, and every one who
has used the term for himself or his associates has been doing the same

thing.'

> The same thing applies to those who said they were doing EC.

'Every one who has used the term for himself or his associates'.

> Don't exaggerate what I said so you can seem to refute what you seem
> to think I said.

I exaggerated nothing: what you said speaks for itself. 'The

people who coined "ethnic cleansing" were murdering civilians, and

*every one who has used the term for himself or his associates has been
doing the same thing*.'

>>Another problem is exemplified by your own comments: you're using the
>>word 'murder' to condemn people who used the term 'ethnic cleansing':
>>you characterized them as people who cooperate with murderers -
>>accessories after the fact, in other words.
>
> "in other words"!!! Never use "in other words" to refer to someone
> else' s words. People who do that almost invariably misstate what the
> other person meant, as you did here, big time. (If you want to use
> "in other words" to reiterate what you yourself meant, that's fine.)

The words you use are the only indication of what you mean, and when you
used the words 'they cooperated with the murderers in minimizeing their
murder,' I perceived an implication that 'they' were accessories to the
crime. That seems like a perfectly reasonable interpretation to me.

> Don't be ridiculous. Mere cooperation by using the same phrase as
> ethnic murderers did, by the press or by politiicians in the US of
> both parties does not make them accessories after the fact.

Using the same phrase as someone is not the same thing as cooperating
with them.

Besides, the meaning and connotations of 'cooperation' are at least as
positive as those of 'cleansing', aren't they? If cleansing is too
positive to be applied to ethnic cleansing, then cooperation is too
positive to be applied to using the term 'ethnic cleansing.'

> It would be stupid enough if you said that, but to try to put those
> words in my mouth is wholely improper.
>
> Their use of the word is a mixture of lack of thinking, foolishness,
> stupidity, following others like sheep, and more evidence that news
> writers aren't what they used to be and politicians aren't what they
> ought to be. But they're not accessories.

Then I think it was misleading to say that they cooperated with
murderers.

[snip]

>>> Find me anyone who claimed to be committing ethnic cleansing who
>>> wasn't a murderer.
>>
>>I'd have a sufficiently difficult time finding you anyone who claimed
>>to be committing ethnic cleansing. Nowadays people are mostly accused
>>of committing it.
>
> Skip nowadays. Who originated the word? Were they not murderers?

Not as far as I can tell. The first attested citation of the phrase
'ethnic cleansing' appeared in a 1991 Reuters report credited to Donald
Forbes:

The [Croatian] Supreme Council said the Serbian guerrillas wanted
to drive Croats out of towns mainly populated by Serbs.

"The aim of this expulsion is obviously the ethnic cleansing of the
critical areas...to be annexed to Serbia," it said.

It's entirely possible that some or all of the people on the Croatian
Supreme Council were murderers, but it seems fairly clear that they were
using the term to characterize the actions of others.

Moreover, it's also clear that the Council was referring to forcible
removal rather than murder. Saying that the Serbs were expelling people
with the aim of murdering them would be senseless.

Another 1991 report quoted a Serb, Zarko Kubrilo: 'Many of us have been
sacked because they want an ethnically clean Croatia.' Thus we see that
both Serbs and Croats used the term to describe the others' actions, not
their own, and both used the term to describe offenses other than
murder.

>>If you're interested, you might want to note that the Commission of
>>Experts who were tasked by the U.N. with examination and analysis of
>>the evidence of whatever-you'd-like-to-call-it during the Bosnian War
>>defined ethnic cleansing as 'a purposeful policy designed by one
>>ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring
>>means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group
>>from certain geographic areas.'
>
> Instead of defining it, they should have said what I've said. It's
> another example of blindness and failure by the U.N.

The people commissioned to produce the report were independent of the
United Nations, of course. It also seems that their definition was more
consistent with the way people actually used the term.

>> As I noted above, murder is only one of the methods
>>employed, and not necessarily the worst.
>
> You are stuck in a rut making the point that it's not just murder.
> My original post was not a treatise that covered everything about
> so-called EC. It was a condemnation and you still haven't managed to
> condemn it in the slightest. Instead you want a neutral word for
> murder and related acts that are a part of so-called EC.
>
>>Calling ethnic cleansing murder reduces the enormity of the crime.
>
> Nowhere near as much as calling it cleansing does.

I disagree.

>>> Why do you want a neutral term for murderers?
>>
>>Why do you want to limit the crimes they committed to murder?
>
> You didn't answer my question.

And you didn't answer mine.

> They all committed plenty of murders. Why do you want a neutral term
> for murderers and those who commit related crimes????

Because I might want to discuss the matter with someone rational
someday.

> And you claim you want a neutral word, but you're endorsing a positive
> word.

You should wash out your mouth with soap for saying that.

> Why do you think Serbians (I think it was) chose "cleansing"??
> Because it sounds good. Don't you get that? Why are you
> endorsing a positive word? Why don't you want a negative word for
> murder and other crimes?

See above. As far as the historical record is concerned, the term was
originally used by people who were opposed to the practice.

> You're still stuck in that rut. By now you should know that I
> include all the other crimes that are a part of it. So what's your
> comeback now.

The term 'ethnically-based murder' includes no crime other than murder.

> When you constantly bring up other, lesser crimes, you seem like an
> apologist for murder. Remember that if you have occasion to discuss
> this with someone else.

I don't think the other crimes in question are lesser crimes, but I'm
open-minded enough to see that others might consider forcibly removing
people from their homes and homelands to be a lesser crime than
murdering them. One might just as well say that someone who constantly
steers a conversation back to murder seems like an apologist for rape.

>>>>The fact that there's no neutral term for the individuals indicates
>>>>that
>
>>>>there are no neutral attitudes towards the issue.
>
> The issue = EC?

I don't think you should drag the European Commission into this.

> I would be horrified if there were neutral attitudes towards murder of
> civilians, destruction of their homes, rape, etc. meant to force
> innocent civilians from their homes and their land. Do you actually
> expect someone to have a neutral attitude towards that?

To the practice? No. To the language? Yes.

> Also the definition you found: "a purposeful policy designed by one
> ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring
> means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group
> from certain geographic areas." Do you actually expect someone to have
> a neutral attitude towards that?

I would hope that most people would understand the difference between
the definition and the thing defined.

[snip]

> I see deliberate distortion and hatred of murder etc. as separate,
> independent things.

I think it's possible to hate the act of murder without imagining that
using the term ethnic cleansing 'is a mixture of lack of thinking,
foolishness, stupidity' and 'following others like sheep'.

>>>> and it's damned difficult to know
>>>>whether anyone on either side is reliable on the subject.
>
> What has this got to do with using a pretty word like cleansing to
> describe murder and other crimes?

You might to allow for some difference of opinion regarding the
prettiness of the word 'cleansing.' Mysophobia is a relatively rare
condition.
--
S.O.P.

[Ross]

I guess we'll have to wait for Peter's authority to explain exactly why
they are "vastly different". To me it seems clear they are not. Why would
one say "X is a Y", metaphorically, when in fact X is *not* a Y (literally,
in fact)? Not because one is delusional, but because one sees X as *like*
a Y in some interesting respect. A simile just helpfully spells this
out for you.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> wrote in
news:el1geahs3ea2bos41...@4ax.com:

> On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 23:34:37 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
> <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>
>>A euphemism is substituting a "nice" word or phrase for an unpleasant
>>one. Saying "passed on" instead of dead, or "downsized" instead of fired.
>>
>>I don't see any euphemisms n "I, too" either, but one could argue darker
>>brother.
>
> I was thinking about "downsized", and trying to think what the name
> for such a figure of speech is. Meiosis? No, that seems to be the
> opposite, making smaller instead of bigger. The Wikipedia article give
> "The Pond", much used in aue, as an example.
>

> The example I was thinking of is terms like "the kettle's boiling"
> when you mean that the water in the kettle is boiling.

Did you ever read Thurber's essay 'Here Lies Miss Groby'? 'The kettle's
boiling' is an example of metonymy - 'the container for the thing
contained'.
--
S.O.P.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> wrote in

news:fuhiead16909fvohs...@4ax.com:

> On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:12:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
> <JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:
>
>>In my high school, there was a kid whose nickname was "digger". His
>>father owned the local mortuary.
>>
>>They also provided all the little Christmas song booklets for the
>>school and community. You would think that with only one mortuary in
>>town, they wouldn't need that much advertising. That didn't occur to
>>me at the time.
>
> I tend to think of "mortuary" as a cold storage room in a hosputal
> where dead bodies are kept until they are collected for burial etc,
> and sometimes pending postmortems.
>
> I've sometimes heard it called the morgue, perhaps by those to whom
> "mortuary" means the undertaker's premises, but again, to me "morgue"
> means the place in newspaper offices where old stories are filed for
> future reference.

'Morgue' has a fairly complex etymology. The English sense 'place where
dead bodies are kept' derives from the French word for a place where
unidentified bodies were displayed (presumably with the hopes that
someone could identify them): that term derived from the term for the
place in a prison where new inmates were required to wait before the
guards assigned them to their cells. That place was apparently called a
morgue because the guards treated the inmates contemptuously: 'morgue'
originally meant 'a haughty demeanor'.

Comparing a room full of corpses to the holding pen of a 17th-century
French prison is a curious way to euphemize it.
--
S.O.P.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 1:18:28 PM UTC-5, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 07:11:23 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >On Saturday, February 21, 2015 at 7:34:06 PM UTC-5, Tony Cooper wrote:

> >> Stuck in a mirror in our bedroom are two "Mass Cards" from Fitzgerald
> >> Funeral Home; one for wife's father (d 1965) and one for my wife's
> >> mother (d 1979). If a Catholic died in my wife's home town in those
> >> days, Fitzgerald's handled the arrangements. They didn't need the
> >> advertisement, but a Mass Card for the deceased was always provided by
> >> Fitzgerald's.
> >"Provided"? You can be sure they billed for them.
>
> All firms include their costs of advertising in their price. It's too
> late to determine if it was a separate billing on invoices, but I
> don't think so.

My mother's funeral bill was itemized in very great detail.

> >> While we've retained only the two, a Catholic family back when would
> >> often have dozens of Mass Cards stuck - between the glass and the
> >> frame - in mirrors and framed photographs. I've never seen them
> >> displayed any other way.
> >Only Catholics are morbid that way any more.
> >A fifty-year-old Mass Card seems rather extreme. How many mirrors has it
> >been transferred between during your moves around the country and redecorating
> >your bedroom?
>
> Only the one. We purchased our bedroom suite through the Merchandise
> Mart in Chicago when we were married in 1964. We had a friend who was
> an interior decorator and had access to the Merchandise Mart. It was
> good quality stuff when we bought it, and shows no sign of being
> either out-dated or worn to this day.
>
> The Merchandise Mart is not a store. Representatives of furniture
> makers had their offices in the Mart, and any purchases through the
> Mart (at the time) were invoiced by the furniture manufacturer and
> shipped from the manufacturer. In our case, from Basset Furniture in
> Virginia.

In my time you could walk through the halls and look in the show windows
but not enter the store. Presumably nowadays they have strict security.

> I don't know if the Mart still functions this way or not. In those
> days, you could not go to the Mart unless you were working with a
> decorator.
>
> Our living room furniture was purchased the same way, but from Hekman
> (Howard Miller) in North Carolina. The tables are still as we
> purchased them, but the couch and chairs have been reupholstered
> several times over the years using the original frames.

It's still only Catholics who are so morbid as to display a 50-year-old Mass Card.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 1:18:59 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 09:41:56 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
> <JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:
> >On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 07:57:04 -0500, micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com>
> >wrote:
> >>On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 15:12:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
> >><JenM...@jm.invalid> wrote:

> >>I went to summer school at another high school (which is why I never met
> >>him before or saw him again, after the summer) and one of the guys there
> >>had a father who did that. He must have helped too. He went into
> >>detail about some of what they did and it is too graphic for a family
> >>newsgroup.
> >Which newsgroup is that?
>
> This one!
>
> >And which family?
>
> The Munsters?
>
> Okay -- in case your imagination is worse than what he actually said --
> what he said, in not necessarily his words, which I have forgotten after
> 50 years, was that the anal sphincter, which apparently is the opposite
> of relaxed (whatever the word for that is) for 99% of the time, for up
> to 100+ years in a row (an amazing feat, imo), relaxes some time after
> death, and when the body is moved much of what is inside comes out.
>
> I don't remember if this apples to the bladder too.

Doesn't Truman Capote discuss this toward the end of *In Cold Blood*?

(Though I don't recall what "did that" refers to. Probably not providing the
infrastructure for small businesses.)

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 3:36:44 PM UTC-5, Lewis wrote:

> A morgue is also where old newspaper archives are kept.

He really doesn't read anyone else's postings.

[Peter T. Daniels]

If I ask him if he's published an article on the question, and he has, would
you track it down, read it, and report? (Yes, he does discuss Aristotle.)

[Ross]

This might be relevant.

Prandi, Michele 2010. "Carla Bazzanella (ed.), La Forza cognitiva della metafora". Pragmatics & Cognition 18:1, 203-210.

Assuming it's a review, and in English, and I can access it, it looks like a
feasible length to read.

[Tony Cooper]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 14:52:29 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>It's still only Catholics who are so morbid as to display a 50-year-old Mass Card.

I guess I missed it when the other religions started printing Mass
Cards.

[Peter Moylan]

On 23/02/15 05:18, micky wrote:

> Okay -- in case your imagination is worse than what he actually said --
> what he said, in not necessarily his words, which I have forgotten after
> 50 years, was that the anal sphincter, which apparently is the opposite
> of relaxed (whatever the word for that is) for 99% of the time, for up
> to 100+ years in a row (an amazing feat, imo), relaxes some time after
> death, and when the body is moved much of what is inside comes out.

One of my new kittens ate a live bee yesterday. The subsequent diarrhoea
had a disgusting look and smell.

And, of course, I'm the designated litter-box-cleaner-upper.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
JE SUIS CHARLIE

[Peter Moylan]

On 21/02/15 10:01, Richard Tobin wrote:
> In article <39d0e55b-9281-407a...@googlegroups.com>,

> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>

>> I'll refer you to the monograph on Figurative Language by Michele
>> Prandi that I'm editing, when it's published. Simile and metaphor are
>> vastly different.
>
> I wouldn't be surprised if there's an interpretation of the terms that
> makes that true, but if Burns had written "My love is a red, red rose,
> that's newly sprung in June" it would have made no difference to
> anything other than the metre.

You can get away with using more than one simile. If instead he had used
metaphors, someone would be sure to say "Hold on, that's not what you
said in the first line".

[Jerry Friedman]

He discusses the difference at

http://aprendeenlinea.udea.edu.co/revistas/index.php/mutatismutandis/article/view/7415/7005

about 3/4 of the way down.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Ross]

Thanks. That may have to do, since we don't seem to have the other journal
here.

Having flicked through, it appears as though his big point is that
metaphors are not literally true, while similes are. That might be a big
cognitive difference, I guess, for someone who was encountering metaphor
for the first time (or say autistic-spectrum people, who have difficulty
with the whole idea). But I would suggest that once we are accustomed to
the idea of metaphor, we no longer seriously maintain the possibility
of literal interpretation, and instead look for the point(s) of similarity
which make the metaphor work.

Another point is that with metaphor, not having to say "like" all the time,
you can elaborate networks and systems of metaphor (the sort of thing
that fascinates Lakoff), and even talk continuously on this level if you
want to. I still don't think that's evidence of a fundamental difference.

And the original question was how to do the granddaughter's school
exercise. Hell, we were drilled on this in high school: if it's got
"like" or "as", it's simile; otherwise, metaphor. [Understood: otherwise
they are basically the same.]

[Jerry Friedman]

I think that's his best argument for a difference in that paper. If
you're classifying figures of speech and defining them as not having
their literal meaning (which he doesn't seem to do), then similes aren't
even figures of speech.

As he discusses, a minor difference that follows from that is that even
the neurotypical reader has more work to do in recognizing a metaphor
before looking for the similarities. Von Glinski, who I quoted in
another post, points out that this is especially problematic in the
/Metamorphosis/ and similar literature; the reader initially doesn't
realize that when Niobe's guts turn to stone, it's literal. (This idea
was big in academic SF criticism in the '70s or so, but GB doesn't find
"science fiction" or the relevant sense of "fantasy" in her book.)

I'm used to thinking of metaphors and similes rhetorically and
poetically, though, so the cognitive similarity you mention is a good
basis for considering them two varieties of the same thing.

> Another point is that with metaphor, not having to say "like" all the time,
> you can elaborate networks and systems of metaphor (the sort of thing
> that fascinates Lakoff), and even talk continuously on this level if you
> want to. I still don't think that's evidence of a fundamental difference.

...

I agree completely, though it's an important one.

By the way, I'd classify "I, Too, Sing America" as an allegory, a figure
sometimes classified as an extended metaphor.

--
Jerry Friedman
There are two kinds of people: those who say "What's a metaphor?" and
those who say "I never metaphor I didn't like."

[Jerry Friedman]

On 2/22/15 9:52 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On 2/22/15 7:45 PM, Ross wrote:
>> On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 3:08:25 PM UTC+13, Jerry Friedman wrote:

[...you'll begin to comprehend dimly/ What I mean by too much metaphor
and simile.]

>>> He discusses the difference at
>>>
>>> http://aprendeenlinea.udea.edu.co/revistas/index.php/mutatismutandis/article/view/7415/7005
>>>
>>>
>>> about 3/4 of the way down.
>>
>> Thanks. That may have to do, since we don't seem to have the other
>> journal here.
>>
>> Having flicked through, it appears as though his big point is that
>> metaphors are not literally true, while similes are. That might be a big
>> cognitive difference, I guess, for someone who was encountering metaphor
>> for the first time (or say autistic-spectrum people, who have difficulty
>> with the whole idea). But I would suggest that once we are accustomed to
>> the idea of metaphor, we no longer seriously maintain the possibility
>> of literal interpretation, and instead look for the point(s) of
>> similarity which make the metaphor work.

...

> I'm used to thinking of metaphors and similes rhetorically and
> poetically, though, so the cognitive similarity you mention is a good
> basis for considering them two varieties of the same thing.

...

I meant to add

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;

Is Michele Prandi so sensitive that he feels a shock with the metaphor
turns into a mere simile? I don't think many people are.

--
Jerry Friedman
Break Keats after five beats; give Nash a slash.

[Jerry Friedman]

On 2/22/15 6:06 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 21/02/15 10:01, Richard Tobin wrote:
>> In article <39d0e55b-9281-407a...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I'll refer you to the monograph on Figurative Language by Michele
>>> Prandi that I'm editing, when it's published. Simile and metaphor are
>>> vastly different.
>>
>> I wouldn't be surprised if there's an interpretation of the terms that
>> makes that true, but if Burns had written "My love is a red, red rose,
>> that's newly sprung in June" it would have made no difference to
>> anything other than the metre.
>
> You can get away with using more than one simile. If instead he had used
> metaphors, someone would be sure to say "Hold on, that's not what you
> said in the first line".

Ignore that person.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Steve Hayes]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:44:13 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"

<sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:

>micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in

>news:387heah8fqfmjnu2h...@4ax.com:

>> Why do you think Serbians (I think it was) chose "cleansing"??
>> Because it sounds good. Don't you get that? Why are you
>> endorsing a positive word? Why don't you want a negative word for
>> murder and other crimes?
>
>See above. As far as the historical record is concerned, the term was
>originally used by people who were opposed to the practice.

Yes, as I understand it the term was originally used by a Serbian
parliamentarian to deprecate the policies of the government of the
autonomous province of Kosovo in Yugoslavia. He said that they were
practising ethnic cleansing by driving Serbs out of the province in
the early 1980s, and he clearly thought it was a bad thing. Others
seem to have thought "Oooh, what a good idea" and within a few years
lots of people were doing it.

The term seems to have caught on and been applied to many other
situations, and I think it accurately describes some of the actions
taken to implement the policy of apartheid in Sou8th Africa between
1948 and 1994.

But it was used positively before that, eg "Judenrein".


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Steve Hayes]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 12:06:04 -0700, Jerry Friedman
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On 2/20/15 9:21 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 23:34:37 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
>> <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>>
>>> A euphemism is substituting a "nice" word or phrase for an unpleasant
>>> one. Saying "passed on" instead of dead, or "downsized" instead of fired.
>>>
>>> I don't see any euphemisms n "I, too" either, but one could argue darker
>>> brother.
>>
>> I was thinking about "downsized", and trying to think what the name
>> for such a figure of speech is. Meiosis? No, that seems to be the
>> opposite, making smaller instead of bigger. The Wikipedia article give
>> "The Pond", much used in aue, as an example.
>
>(And unfortunately capitalizes the t. You can't tell in that sentence,
>but the next sentence uses "The Ditch" for the Tasman Sea.)
>
>> The example I was thinking of is terms like "the kettle's boiling"
>> when you mean that the water in the kettle is boiling.
>
>"The container for the thing contained" is a standard subclass of
>metonymy, the substitution of a word that denotes a related thing.

That's the one,

>> When the firm one is working for downsizes or retrenches, then if one
>> is laid off one says "I've been downsized" or "I've been retrenched".
>
>I don't know a name for that one. Maybe it's a kind of metonymy.

That's what I was asking. I don't think it's a metaphor, a simile, or
a euphemism.

I think it was originally a kind of wry humour, "I'm an innocent
victim of the retrenchment/downsizing of my company", and others
hearing it used it as a normal word for what happened, until
eventually the connection was entirely lost.

An obituary for my maths teacher in the school magazine mentioned that
he was a naval officer who became a victim of the Geddes Axe. The
headmaster who wrote the report must have assumed that everyone of his
generation would know what "the Geddes Axe" was, but there was no
Google in those days (1961), so most of the younger generation had no
idea what he was on about.

Now thanks to Google one can find out fairly quickly that the Geddes
Axe was a scheme for retrenchment (the Wikipedia article actually uses
the word).

I don't think I ever heard "I've been retrenched" until the 1980s, and
"downsizing" as a synonym for retrenchment came even later -- the
1990s, perhaps.

The terms have come so far from their original meaning that we hear
government spokesmen saying things like "We will be cutting
expenditure in several departments but there will be no
retrenchments."

>
>> Perhaps it is meiosis, applying the bigger term to the smaller.
>
>Not meiosis as I know it.

--

[Peter T. Daniels]

It's not in his references. He lists several books, but this is the only article:

Prandi, M. (2012). A Plea for Living Metaphors: Conflictual Metaphors and Metaphorical Swarms. Metaphor and Symbol, 27 (2), 148-170.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 7:33:41 PM UTC-5, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 14:52:29 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

> >It's still only Catholics who are so morbid as to display a 50-year-old Mass Card.
>
> I guess I missed it when the other religions started printing Mass
> Cards.

What are you nattering about now?

[Ross]

On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 6:11:32 PM UTC+13, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:44:13 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
> <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
> >news:387heah8fqfmjnu2h...@4ax.com:
> >> Why do you think Serbians (I think it was) chose "cleansing"??
> >> Because it sounds good. Don't you get that? Why are you
> >> endorsing a positive word? Why don't you want a negative word for
> >> murder and other crimes?
> >
> >See above. As far as the historical record is concerned, the term was
> >originally used by people who were opposed to the practice.
>
> Yes, as I understand it the term was originally used by a Serbian
> parliamentarian to deprecate the policies of the government of the
> autonomous province of Kosovo in Yugoslavia. He said that they were
> practising ethnic cleansing by driving Serbs out of the province in
> the early 1980s, and he clearly thought it was a bad thing. Others
> seem to have thought "Oooh, what a good idea" and within a few years
> lots of people were doing it.
>
> The term seems to have caught on and been applied to many other
> situations, and I think it accurately describes some of the actions
> taken to implement the policy of apartheid in Sou8th Africa between
> 1948 and 1994.

It always reminds me of "purge", which went from cleaning out your
bowels to getting rid of people you didn't like. To my surprise,
I find that the Soviets didn't invent this. Both senses of "purge"
date from the late 1500s in English. (Russian _chistka_ also
meant "clean-up" and then "(political) purge", but I don't have
dates for that.)

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Steve Hayes skrev:

> The term seems to have caught on and been applied to many other
> situations, and I think it accurately describes some of the actions
> taken to implement the policy of apartheid in Sou8th Africa between
> 1948 and 1994.

> But it was used positively before that, eg "Judenrein".

Is that a change? isn't cleansing always positive for those who
do it?

--
Bertel, Denmark

[occam]

On 22/02/2015 00:36, Peter Moylan wrote:

> People started going to
> a neighbouring town to be buried.
>

How did they do that? "I'm off to Chipping honey to see a man about a
plot. I may be some time."

[Steve Hayes]

It is disagreeing with what someone else said -- the bit you snipped.

[Peter Moylan]

They didn't go under their own steam. Their relatives made the
arrangement. This was possibly, although not certainly, under
instructions from the deceased.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 07:15:20 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
wrote:

>On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:44:13 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
><sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>>news:387heah8fqfmjnu2h...@4ax.com:
>>> Why do you think Serbians (I think it was) chose "cleansing"??
>>> Because it sounds good. Don't you get that? Why are you
>>> endorsing a positive word? Why don't you want a negative word for
>>> murder and other crimes?
>>
>>See above. As far as the historical record is concerned, the term was
>>originally used by people who were opposed to the practice.
>
>Yes, as I understand it the term was originally used by a Serbian
>parliamentarian to deprecate the policies of the government of the
>autonomous province of Kosovo in Yugoslavia. He said that they were
>practising ethnic cleansing by driving Serbs out of the province in
>the early 1980s, and he clearly thought it was a bad thing. Others
>seem to have thought "Oooh, what a good idea" and within a few years
>lots of people were doing it.
>

OED:

ethnic cleansing, n.
Etymology: < ethnic adj. + cleansing n., after Serbian and Croatian
etnicko cišcenje (1985 or earlier).

Compare earlier ethnically clean adj. at ethnically adv.
Compounds.

The purging, by mass expulsion or killing, of one ethnic or
religious group by another, esp. from an area of former
cohabitation. Cf. earlier cleansing n. Additions.
Originally used of (and afterwards most strongly associated with)
the actions of the various nationalities in the Wars of Yugoslav
Succession (1991–5). This and related terms are often regarded as
euphemistic in intention.

1991 Washington Post 2 Aug. a22/5 The Croatian political and
military leadership issued a statement..declaring that Serbia's
‘aim..is obviously the ethnic cleansing of the critical areas that
are to be annexed to Serbia’.

ethnically clean adj.
[compare Albanian etnikisht i pastër, Serbian and Croatian etnicki
cist] (of a geographical area, a society, etc.) characterized by
ethnic or religious uniformity, esp. as a result of the purging of
minority groups; cf. ethnic cleansing n. [In quot. 1981 with
allusion to the Albanian slogan Kosova etnikisht e pastër (‘an
ethnically clean Kosovo’; compare Serbian etnicki cisto Kosovo). The
veracity of this slogan as allegedly reflecting the aim of Kosovar
Albanian nationalists in the aftermath of the Kosovo crisis of 1981
has been disputed. It has sometimes been characterized as a
deliberate concoction of Serbian nationalists devised as a
scaremongering tactic (and was repudiated as such by Enver Hoxha,
the Communist leader of Albania, in a speech of October 1982).]

1981 Z. Antic RAD Background Rep. (Yugoslavia): Exodus Serbs from
Kosovo (Radio Free Europe Research) 142 2 Spiro Galovic, the
secretary of the Serbian party CC, said a little bit more about
what was going on in Kosovo: ‘Albanian nationalists were inciting
ethnic Albanians against the Serbs and demanding an ethnically
clean Kosovo.’

cleansing, n.
Draft additions October 2001

[Compare Serbian and Croatian cišcenje (1942 in this sense in
Serbian), probably after a German word (perhaps Reinigung or
Säuberung (compare quot. 1936)).] The purging of ethnic or
religious minority groups from a geographical area, society, etc.,
esp. by expulsion or killing. Cf. ethnic cleansing n., social
cleansing n. at social adj. and n. Special uses 2.

1936 Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev. 30 346 In Berlin, for example, there
was a cleansing process (Säuberungsaktion), directed against
Marxists, Jews, and others who were alleged to be enemies of the
state, involving wholesale charges of corruption and inefficiency.

social cleansing n.
the removal by a dominant social group of other
(esp. disadvantaged) social groups which it regards as undesirable
(cf. ethnic cleansing n.). Cf. cleansing n.

1976 D. J. Olsen Growth of Victorian London iv. 147 Long before
the very rich began to covet converted workmen's cottages the
social cleansing of Chelsea had begun.

>The term seems to have caught on and been applied to many other
>situations, and I think it accurately describes some of the actions
>taken to implement the policy of apartheid in Sou8th Africa between
>1948 and 1994.
>
>But it was used positively before that, eg "Judenrein".

--

Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:36:01 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

>Okay, so one time? In band camp? Janet <nob...@home.com> was all, like:
>> In article <fuhiead16909fvohs...@4ax.com>,
>> haye...@telkomsa.net says...

>
>>> I tend to think of "mortuary" as a cold storage room in a hosputal
>>> where dead bodies are kept until they are collected for burial etc,
>>> and sometimes pending postmortems.
>>>
>>> I've sometimes heard it called the morgue, perhaps by those to whom
>>> "mortuary" means the undertaker's premises, but again, to me "morgue"
>>> means the place in newspaper offices where old stories are filed for
>>> future reference.
>

>> Back in the 60's, my husband had a student-vacation job in a hospital
>> morgue where his duties included collecting dead patients from the
>> wards, and taking amputated limbs/bits to be burned in the hospital
>> incinerator.
>
>> His job title was "mortuary attendant".
>
>Is this pondial? I think of a morgue as being in a hospital and a
>mortuary being a private business that sells funerals and funeral
>accessories.
>
In BrE "morgue" and "mortuary" are synonyms for a place where dead
bodies are kept temporarily.

As far as I can see, in the UK "mortuary" is genrally used of a place
where bodies are kept for pathological examination.

The professional people who work in mortuaries are "mortuary
technicians" (formally: Anatomical pathology technicians).
There is an interview with one here:
http://www.mookychick.co.uk/how-to/fun-alternative-jobs/mortuary-technician-jobs.php

Its starts:

Carla wanted to work in a mortuary ever since she was a little girl.
UK Pathologists prefer not to call it a morgue…

The job is described here:
https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/anatomicalpathologytechnician.aspx

"Funeral Homes" and "Funeral Parlours" run by funeral directors
(undertakers) have rooms where the deceased are kept but those don't
seem to be known as mortuaries (or at least not when dealing with the
public). One phrase for such rooms in a funeral home is "Chapel of
Rest".
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/chapel-of-rest?q=chapel+of+rest

A chain of funeral directors in my neck of the woods uses the phrase
"remembrance room" for a room in a funeral home in which a body is held
prior to the funeral and can be viewed.

>A morgue is also where old newspaper archives are kept.

[micky]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 07:15:20 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
wrote:

>On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 20:44:13 +0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"
><sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote in
>>news:387heah8fqfmjnu2h...@4ax.com:
>>> Why do you think Serbians (I think it was) chose "cleansing"??
>>> Because it sounds good. Don't you get that? Why are you
>>> endorsing a positive word? Why don't you want a negative word for
>>> murder and other crimes?
>>
>>See above. As far as the historical record is concerned, the term was
>>originally used by people who were opposed to the practice.
>
>Yes, as I understand it the term was originally used by a Serbian
>parliamentarian to deprecate the policies of the government of the
>autonomous province of Kosovo in Yugoslavia. He said that they were
>practising ethnic cleansing by driving Serbs out of the province in
>the early 1980s, and he clearly thought it was a bad thing. Others
>seem to have thought "Oooh, what a good idea" and within a few years
>lots of people were doing it.
>
>The term seems to have caught on and been applied to many other
>situations, and I think it accurately describes some of the actions
>taken to implement the policy of apartheid in Sou8th Africa between
>1948 and 1994.
>
>But it was used positively before that, eg "Judenrein".

You think Judenrein was used positively? Only if you're a God-damned
nazi or other piece of dung.

--
Please say where you live, or what
area's English you are asking about.
So your question or answer makes sense.
. .
I have lived all my life in the USA,
Western Pa. Indianapolis, Chicago,
Brooklyn, Baltimore.

[Jack Campin]

> The professional people who work in mortuaries are "mortuary
> technicians" (formally: Anatomical pathology technicians).
> There is an interview with one here:
> http://www.mookychick.co.uk/how-to/fun-alternative-jobs/mortuary-technician-jobs.php
>
> Its starts:
>
> Carla wanted to work in a mortuary ever since she was a little girl.
> UK Pathologists prefer not to call it a morgue…
>
> The job is described here:
> https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/anatomicalpathologytechnician.aspx

This is a pretty good description of the job in the UK:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8027018-down-among-the-dead-men

(The style came across to me as naturally conversational - from
those reviews, it would probably appeal to some of the regulars here
as much as a bucketful of live maggots).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[Steve Hayes]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 11:46:45 -0500, micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com>
wrote:

Naturally, since they were the ones who weren't opposed to the
practice.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 17:38:41 +0000, Jack Campin <bo...@purr.demon.co.uk>
wrote:

>> The professional people who work in mortuaries are "mortuary
>> technicians" (formally: Anatomical pathology technicians).
>> There is an interview with one here:
>> http://www.mookychick.co.uk/how-to/fun-alternative-jobs/mortuary-technician-jobs.php
>>
>> Its starts:
>>
>> Carla wanted to work in a mortuary ever since she was a little girl.

>> UK Pathologists prefer not to call it a morgue…

>>
>> The job is described here:
>> https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/anatomicalpathologytechnician.aspx
>
>This is a pretty good description of the job in the UK:
>
>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8027018-down-among-the-dead-men
>
>(The style came across to me as naturally conversational - from
>those reviews, it would probably appeal to some of the regulars here
>as much as a bucketful of live maggots).
>

The first time I came across a mortuary, at a safe distance, was when I
was in the Royal Air Force at Marham. It was an airfield that was a base
for bombers that were part of the nuclear deterrent.

Towards the end of my time there, perhaps 1958, there were additions to
the facilities including the installation of surface to air missiles for
defensive purposes. That was interesting, but the thing that really
caught people's attention and became a topic of conversation was the
doubling in size of the mortuary.

I and my colleagues discussed it carefully. As the air base was manned
by fit and healthy young and middle-aged men the normal death rate was
close to zero. In the event of a lethal enemy attack there was a good
chance that the mortuary capacity would have been overwhelmed.

We decided, speculatively, that someone, somewhere, sometime, had
decreed mortuary sizes depending on the number of people at a base and
that the additional people who had arrived to man the missiles had put
the total above a threshhold which resulted in the automatic doubling of
capacity.

We never did get any official explanation.

[Peter Moylan]

On 24/02/15 00:21, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:

> "Funeral Homes" and "Funeral Parlours" run by funeral directors
> (undertakers) have rooms where the deceased are kept but those don't
> seem to be known as mortuaries (or at least not when dealing with the
> public).

I've never understood the logic behind the term "funeral home". The word
"home" usually refers to a place where one lives -- or at least resides
-- for a significant amount of time. It doesn't really work for
short-term residents.

Should we blame the real estate agents?

[Tony Cooper]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 09:40:01 +1100, Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org>
wrote:

>On 24/02/15 00:21, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
>
>> "Funeral Homes" and "Funeral Parlours" run by funeral directors
>> (undertakers) have rooms where the deceased are kept but those don't
>> seem to be known as mortuaries (or at least not when dealing with the
>> public).
>
>I've never understood the logic behind the term "funeral home". The word
>"home" usually refers to a place where one lives -- or at least resides
>-- for a significant amount of time. It doesn't really work for
>short-term residents.
>
>Should we blame the real estate agents?

You should create a web page and put this argument on your home page.

[Tony Cooper]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 01:49:53 +0000 (UTC), Lewis
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:

>Okay, so one time? In band camp? Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org> was all, like:

>> On 24/02/15 00:21, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
>
>>> "Funeral Homes" and "Funeral Parlours" run by funeral directors
>>> (undertakers) have rooms where the deceased are kept but those don't
>>> seem to be known as mortuaries (or at least not when dealing with the
>>> public).
>
>> I've never understood the logic behind the term "funeral home". The word
>> "home" usually refers to a place where one lives -- or at least resides
>> -- for a significant amount of time. It doesn't really work for
>> short-term residents.
>

>Many funeral homes are, in fact, homes. When my Uncle died, the funeral
>home my cousins used was a home and the... mortician? and his family
>lived in the house on the second floor (BrE first floor).

One of my daughter's college friends was the daughter of a florist in
a small town in Georgia. The family lived above the florist shop that
was in a converted residence.

Across the street was a residence that had been converted to a funeral
home, and the owner of that lived on the second floor.

When the florist noticed, from his window, someone being brought to
the funeral home, he'd start preparing the floral arrangements knowing
that - as the only florist in town - he'd get the business. The
floral arrangements were often completed before the mortician finished
preparing the deceased.

[Peter Moylan]

My home page has been in the same place for years, and might well
outlive me.

[Mark Brader]

Peter Duncanson:

> The first time I came across a mortuary, at a safe distance, was when I

> was in the Royal Air Force at Marham...

>
> Towards the end of my time there, perhaps 1958, there were additions to
> the facilities including the installation of surface to air missiles for
> defensive purposes. That was interesting, but the thing that really
> caught people's attention and became a topic of conversation was the
> doubling in size of the mortuary.
>
> I and my colleagues discussed it carefully. As the air base was manned
> by fit and healthy young and middle-aged men the normal death rate was
> close to zero. In the event of a lethal enemy attack there was a good
> chance that the mortuary capacity would have been overwhelmed.
>
> We decided, speculatively, that someone, somewhere, sometime, had
> decreed mortuary sizes depending on the number of people at a base and
> that the additional people who had arrived to man the missiles had put
> the total above a threshhold which resulted in the automatic doubling of
> capacity.

I am reminded of the Titanic, which had the 16 lifeboats required by
regulations, with a total capacity of 990 people, plus 4 collapsible
boats that we're required and had a further capacity of 188 -- when the
ship's total passenger and crew capacity was something like 3,500 people.

(Good thing it was only about 2/3 full on its one voyage. Bad thing
that the lifeboats were only loaded to the point where they also averaged
about 2/3 full.)
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "Truth speak from any chair."
m...@vex.net -- Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

A few decades ago some of the original engineering drawings for the
Titanic were found. I seem to recall they showed mountings for four
times as many lifeboats as were eventually fitted. They were in groups
of four with two on top of two.

I saw a documentary about a ship that had got into trouble in the North
Atlantic some time before the Titanic sank. The passengers and crew on
that ship had been rescued and transferred to other ships nearby using a
smallish number of lifeboats. The suggestion in the documentary was that
that event had convinced the regulators (UK Board of Trade) that it was
not necessary for the lifeboats to have the same total capacity as the
ship and that had sealed the fate of those who were not to survive the
sinking of the Titanic.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

I've just discovered the name of the ship featured in the documentary.
It was the White Star liner RMS Republic mentioned here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboats_of_the_RMS_Titanic#Lack_of_lifeboats_and_training

The shortage of lifeboats was not due to a lack of space; Titanic
had been designed to accommodate up to 64 boats
....
The White Star Line never envisaged that all of the crew and
passengers would have to be evacuated at once, as Titanic was
considered almost unsinkable. The lifeboats were instead intended to
be used to transfer passengers off the ship and onto a nearby vessel
providing assistance. While Titanic was under construction, an
incident involving the White Star liner RMS Republic appeared to
confirm this approach. Republic was involved in a collision with the
Lloyd Italiano liner SS Florida in January 1909 and sank. Even
though she did not have enough lifeboats for all passengers, they
were all saved because the ship was able to stay afloat long enough
for them to be ferried to ships coming to assist

The article about the Republic says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Republic_%281903%29#Collision_with_SS_Florida

At the time of Republic's sinking, ocean liners were not required to
have a full capacity of lifeboats for their passengers, officers and
crew. It was believed that on the busy North Atlantic route
assistance from at least one ship would be ever-present, and
lifeboats would only be needed to ferry all aboard to their rescue
vessels and back until everyone was safely evacuated. This scenario
fortunately played out flawlessly during the ship's sinking, and the
six people who did die were lost in the collision, not the sinking.
However, another White Star Liner, RMS Titanic would founder on her
maiden voyage in 1912; she too did not carry enough lifeboats for
all aboard, and as a result only 711 survived, about 32 percent of
those on board.