Euphemisms in English Everyday Discourse Eufemismy V anglickém jazykovém prostředí

1.1.4 Dysphemism and Orthophemism
Dealing with euphemisms, dysphemisms and orthophemisms must be defined 
because they are on the same semantic scale and differ only in the intensity of semantic 
meaning. Allan and Burridge (2006) define dysphemism as the counterpart of 
euphemism. It means that the aim of dysphemisms is not to soften the denotational 
meaning, but on the contrary to coarsen it. Through the right choice of words and 
expressions the speaker can harm, humiliate and degrade the listener. However, 
dysphemisms are not so common in everyday life and they are rather characteristic of 
certain groups and communities such as political groups or feminists speaking about 
men.
Allan and Burridge (2006: 33) introduce orthophemism and describe it as “a 
typically more formal and more direct (or literal) than the corresponding euphemism.”
The contrast of these three phenomena might be seen in words
menstruate – have a 
period – bleed
, where the first item is an example of orthophemism followed by a 
euphemism and the last word belongs to the category of dysphemism. Orthophemism is 
understood as a denotative meaning, whereas euphemism and dysphemism are rather 
connotations with different emotional colouring. The emotional values differ from one 
community to another and from context to context.
1.2 TABOO 
1.2.1 Taboos and Their Origins
The term taboo refers to a prohibition of behaviour that influences everyday life 
and comes mainly from social constraints. Not taking these restrictions into 

---

13 
consideration can cause harm and discomfort. Thus, this language is found as the 
subject to censorship and is used to mitigate the potential danger of offence. In fact the 
existence of taboos arouses language change, especially in terms of semantics and 
supports the creation of new milder and roundabout alternatives.
New expressions might be produced either by changing a form of the tabooed 
word or by using figurative language that conceals the direct meaning. Dealing with 
taboos from a historical point of view they define the forbidden topics in a particular 
period, which gives us an idea about social restrictions of that time. At the same time 
analysing taboos provides an extremely interesting insight into the human psyche and 
observes the reaction of human beings towards the world around.
Allan and Burridge (2006: 2) state that “the English word taboo is derived from 
the Tongan tabu, which came to notice towards the end of the eighteen century. In the 
language of Polynesia the word means simply to forbid, forbidden and can be applied to 
any sort of prohibition.” The term taboo was spread all around the world and usually 
refers to a topic which is offensive and thus needs to be avoided. Taboos are used not 
only in an everyday discourse, but it was extended to political and social issues. 
Basically, every area of life might be tabooed. In order to evade this imprecision a 
tabooed topic must be in some way harmful or offensive to an individual or to a 
community. Rawson (2010: 5) points out, that “extraordinary collections of 
euphemisms have formed around some topics over the years as a result of the continual 
creation of new terms.”