MODERN American speech, while not always clear or correct or turned with much style, is supposed to be uncommonly frank. Witness the current explosion of four-letter words and the explicit discussion ...

If Donald Trump ends up serving a term in prison (there’s still hope!), I’d relish the chance to refer to him as an ex-con. Like “felon,” the brute force of the term, with its hard-boiled ...

From "alternative facts" to "middle-aged politicians," Americans in our age, and maybe not just in our age, need to be fluent in euphemism when reading about almost any issue. Pro-Life and Pro-Choice ...

Language is far less neutral than we usually think it is: Questions can be leading and words can be biased, and they are more likely to be biased the more controversial the topic. In general, attempts ...

“Where is the euphemism?” A college friend used to ask this question to point out the silliness of calling a toilet a bathroom. Euphemism in ordinary speech may be amusing, stilted, or polite, but in ...

Euphemisms to talk about the dead, military jargon, patriotic poems and self-censorship: two and a half years of fighting in Ukraine have had an impact on Russian language and literature. The Barron's ...