Microsoft Word Seminars on stylistics

Task 2. Pick out euphemisms in the following sentences and give 
their ordinary equivalents: 
 
1. Her father wrote a letter to Miss Pinkerton recommending the orphan child 
to her protection, and so descended to the grave. (Thackeray) 
2. Old Timothy; he might go off the hooks at any moment. (J. Galsworthy). 
3. “I hope shall kick the bucket long before I’m as old as grandfather”, he 
thought. (J. Galsworthy). 
The stylistic function of Euphemism
to produce a humorous effect or to 
distort the truth, to make the statement 
milder

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4. Mr. Reed had been dead nine years; it was in this chamber he breathed his 
last. (Sh. Bronte). 
5. Mr. Forsyte has passed away, sir – in his sleep the doctor says.
(J. Galsworthy). 
Hyperbole 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
It is deliberate overstatement or exaggeration of some quantity, quality, size, 
etc., the aim of which is to intensify one of the features of the object to such a 
degree that from the practical point of view the fulfillment of which is impossible.
Both the writer and the reader are fully aware of the deliberateness of the 
exaggeration. 

Hyperbole may be expressed in a periphrastic descriptive way. 
e.g.:
“What I suffer in that way 
no tongue can tell
” (J. K. Jerome). 
“No tongue can tell”
means 
“it is very difficult to express by means of a 
language”.

In this case hyperbole is based on metonymy 
(tongue)
.
We constantly use expressions containing hyperbole in our everyday speech. 
Such exaggerations are distinguished from a hyperbole as a stylistic device: 
e.g.:
I haven’t seen you 
for ages
, 
I asked him on my 
bended knees
,
You promised it 
one thousand times
,
A thousand pardons, scared to death
, 
I’d 
give the world
to see him. 
a stylistic device based on the interaction
between the logical and emotive meanings 
of the word.