Euphemism

To pay my rent, I cash in on my high school nerdiness by tutoring algebra, the SATs and the like to the precocious youth of New York City. The vocabulary-building and infinite patience costs their parents money; the propoganda they get for free.

Last week:

Me: “Okay, so this week we’re going to do words that describe other kinds of words. Pseudonym?”

[let’s-call-her] Lucy, age 15: “Pen name.”

Emily: “Good. Neologism.”

Lucy: “A new word that gets added to the dictionary.”

Emily. “Good. Euphemism. Do you know what a euphemism is, Lucy?”

“Um…no.”

“A euphemism is a word we use to make something nasty sound nicer. So when we call the bathroom a “comfort station,” that’s a euphemism. There are some great euphemisms here on this vocabulary card. Like, ‘collateral damage.’ Do you know what that is?

“No.”

“Well, collateral damage is when innocent civilians die in a military attack. So when a government official says, there has been some ‘collateral damage,’ it’s a euphemism for ‘innocent men, women and children whose guts and brains and parts of limbs are smeared all over their houses or maybe just blown off in front of their families by bombs dropped by the United States Army that are supposedly going to ‘liberate’ them. But instead of saying ‘innocent men, women and children whose guts and brains and parts of limbs are smeared all over their houses or maybe just blown off in front of their families by bombs dropped by the United States Army,’ we use the euphemism, ‘collateral damage,’ because it doesn’t sound as gross.

Lucy [wide-eyed]: “Oh.”

“Another euphemism on your vocabulary card is ‘friendly fire.’ Do you know what that is?”

“No, what?”

“‘Friendly fire’ is when the American military accidentally kills its own soldiers when it’s trying to attack the enemy. Shoots them, bombs them, shoots down their helicopters or planes.”

“That happens?”

“Oh, yeah, all the time. One in three casualties in the first Gulf War was from friendly fire, did you know that? So ‘friendly fire’ is a euphemism for one when one terrified, incompetent kid from, say, Ohio, who has been trained and armed at a cost of thousands if not millions of dollars and then sent thousands of miles from home miscalculates, or doesn’t even miscalculate, just follows orders and accidentally drops a giant bomb costing thousands of not millions of dollars on another kid, or maybe a whole truckful or tankful of kids from, say, Oklahoma, lighting them on fire and burning them all to death or maybe just hitting one or two kids and smearing their guts and brains and limbs all over in front of their friends, when they’ve all been sent thousands of miles from home to kill terrified Iraqi kids. Or maybe they’re not terrified, maybe they’re all pretending to play video games. Hard to say, don’t know much about war myself except books and movies. Anyway, it would be too ridiculous to say ‘the 18-to-25-year-olds who make up the bulk of our army have just accidentally killed one of their own for no apparent reason, despite having the most expensive gear tax dollars can buy, one American has just smeared the guts of one of his fellow Americans across the desert, it’s too bad, really,’ so they use the euphemism ‘friendly fire.’

Do you understand now, Lucy?”

This is why I love my job. This is also why I’m not cut out to teach in a normal school. Or possibly have any contact with children whatsoever.