Euphemisms in English Everyday Discourse Eufemismy V anglickém jazykovém prostředí

incurable illness
into a comedy. I have been an oncologist for a couple of 
decades, so I have seen so many people live their illness with the gamut of 
emotions and some do introduce a lot of comedy into their situation.” 
(Murray, 
2010)
Another way of creating euphemisms is through the acronyms. Although 
we refer to the disease quite directly we do not express the whole word, but just 
the letters or a connection of a word and a letter. Currently, acronyms are very 
popular because they are economical in terms of space and pronunciation. In this 
fashion, this phenomenon affected also euphemizing. Despite the fact, that the 
euphemisms in the examples below are not very formal they appear quite a lot in 
press. Their function is to soften the seriousness of the issue; however, these 
euphemisms might sound as playful nicknames that do not deal with the diseases 
with respect and humbleness.
 “We’ve gotten way beyond the time when cancer was one thing. But I am not 
sure that the 
big C
has gone away, said Harold Burstein, MD, a medical 
oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.”
(Mulcahy, 2016) 
“Drug-resistant 
TB
, which is more difficult and very expensive to treat with 
combinations of the latest antibiotics, has also risen, to more than half a million 
cases globally.”
(Boseley, 2016)
 

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49 
Acronyms as euphemisms are also used when referring to another disease 
which is – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Although 
AIDS
is nowadays 
understood as a common word without any colouring or softening function. 
Originally it was a euphemism for 
gay cancer
or 
GRID
, which were aimed at a 
certain group of people. The acronym AIDS itself went through the process of 
development and lexicalisation and currently it is fully accepted in the word stock, 
but still in some technical articles one can come across its shorter version – 
A.I.D
. 
Since the acronym AIDS is understood as formal it is frequently used in media. 
On the other hand, due to a political correctness the terms such as 
gay cancer 
and 
GRID
disappeared almost completely.
“He says that back in 1981 and ’80, before