Euphemisms in English Everyday Discourse Eufemismy V anglickém jazykovém prostředí

 1.5 SUMMARY
As a conclusion, euphemisms have become an integral part of the word stock of 
a language. Although they are relatively stable items they undergo the process of 
entering and leaving vocabulary of a language. Moreover, some of the substitutions 
synonyms were used so much that they went through the procedure of lexicalisation and 
nowadays their euphemistic origin is not noticeable and cannot be guessed.
However euphemizing is not the matter of the last few decades, but this 
technique is as old as the language itself. Since it is a general knowledge that words can 

---

28 
hurt there has always been a need for indirect, soft and almost vague terms. Originally, 
they covered up only few taboo areas such as sexual and dying topics. In the course of 
time they entered other spheres and at the present time they have already penetrated 
every single layer of the social life. In fact, euphemisms reflect the period we live in. 
They are flexible in terms of new inventions and socioeconomic situations.
The increasing number of euphemisms called for its division. Therefore the 
linguistics started to distinguish between euphemism and doublespeak, which is 
basically a euphemism but with different intention. The main difference lies in the 
speaker’s or writer’s purpose. As euphemisms are used in order to evade an offensive 
effect in sensitive topics and tend to soften the possible negative impact of the utterance, 
doublespeak is rather practice when deceiving and hiding unwelcome facts. 
Doublespeak is predominantly used by politicians, reporters and media as their tool for 
manipulation and control of people’s thoughts, reactions and decisions. Thus the main 
realms where doublespeak abounded are political speeches, socio-economy, 
advertisement and topics dealing with war, crime and business.
Political correctness uses primarily euphemisms since this relatively new 
phenomenon refers to the calling of groups with the names they prefer. Nowadays, 
political correctness itself is a very fashionable term that gives us an opportunity to 
present ourselves as tolerable and without any prejudices. However, the reason for this 
open-minded view of the world around us arises from the history when people were 
excluded because of their ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical appearance and belief.