Many of the examples struck me as idiomatic language or jargon rather than euphemisms...

But I really enjoyed, "...euphemisms had penetrated into various realms..." since I agree that the misuse of language has farked those occupations.

Good work, keep it up. Nudge, nudge, know what I mean?

Loved the photo, too. John Cleese in the Argument Clinic sketch?

Thank you Professor Curson for demonstrating what is wrong with the tertiary education sector: you have risen to the top and have the temerity to write a puff piece on euphemism in academic writing which repeatedly demonstrates that you don't actually know what constitutes a euphemism and you didn't bother to check (a practice which used to be covered in Academic Rigour 1.01 at all reputable universities). All the examples you give are obfuscations, academic jargon, padding, poor writing, edubabble. They are not euphemisms. This is a euphemism: saying "I cannot go to the bathroom" when you can't bring yourself to say "I am constipated".

This is the first online definition I found:

eu·phe·mism

- less offensive synonym: a word or phrase used in place of a term that might be considered too direct, harsh, unpleasant, or offensive
- use of inoffensive words: the use of a word or phrase that is more neutral, vague, or indirect to replace a direct, harsh, unpleasant, or offensive term

None of your examples qualify.

Haaa haha. I believe that Peter Curson IS John Cleese, looking for a scholarly argument with this article!

Although I do admit that more research on this important topic is needed! ( :>)

I have often encountered in books of mathematics, "It is obvious..." "It is obvious..." actually means "It can be proven..." Proving it may require pages upon pages of mathematical reasoning.

One euphemism that bothers me greatly is to call the military a defense force. If that were truly so wars would cease as there would be no attacks. Armies can attack, threaten, occupy and do many other things like help in catastrophes. The military is much more than a defense force. Why not refer to the military as the military and weapons as weapons rather than defense equipment? "Collateral damage" may be be unintended slaughter dressed up in fancier wordage. The killing establishments are rife with euphemisms.

Another euphemism is to call someone who works for the government a public servant. An arrogant and unhelpful bureaucrat does not behave like a respectful servant. Those who work for the government have government jobs. They should be called government workers not public servants.

Yes Peter, Candide is right.

Euphemism is where we say something in a roundabout or covert because it would seem impolite to say it frankly, for example "I'm going to the bathroom", instead of "I'm going to p!ss".

What you have cited have in common that the author uses the third person neuter passive mood, "it is", rather than the first person singular active mood, "I" as the subject of the sentence to obscure the fact that he is talking about his own value judgments.

This is worse than euphemism for two reasons.

Firstly it is sloppy thinking. It doesn't distinguish *who* is actually making the value judgment. This is critical where it is the value judgments involved that are in issue.

Secondly, it is dishonest because it is often used in academic writing, especially in the environmental sciences, to cover for the fact that the author has a vested interest in a particular outcome, and a conflict of interest with people relying on his paper for the truth.

I remember when I was studying ecology and biogeography at university. The lecturers taught us to say "it is concluded" etc. instead of "I conclude", saying it's "more scientific". This is complete bullsh!t. It's *less scientific".

Then when our results did not show any clear conclusion, or whatever conclusion they did show, we used to laugh about concluding that this shows the need for more research funding to be channelled in our direction.

At the time we thought this was a big joke. But imagine my chagrin on entering the real world to find that this kind corrupt obscurantism is used *all the time* in the environmental sciences as a pretext for politicians to violate people's property rights, passing off the value judgments involved to some unspecified "it".

What is the euphemism for egotistical idiot?
Professor, in stepping outside your narrow expertise to publically exhibit your ignorance, you have invited the rubbishing of "academic writing". Fortunately , you do not represent climate scientists.

As a skullar of self-repute from my ivory tower I use nout but:

- "...is informed by"

Failing that

- "it privileges..."

- any serious left-winger in his/her estimation, is "a truth-teller".

And I never cease to adhere to the American usage, 3/4s through any paper of serious academic intent, of

- "To be sure..."

Not the Orish "to be sure, to be sure" just "To be sure..."

Armed with these gems any budding scholar is set for unpaid stardom.

I would have said stardom at ANU but poor-lil ANU has quietly slid down this year's world University ratings from being top Uni in Oz - and now can't advertise about it to mega-fee paying foreign students.

Melbourne University is now top Oz Uni this year.

Yours

Planta Highbrow

Melbourne University is now top Oz Uni this year.
plantagenet,
Where does that put them on the international scale or are it's lecturers imports ?
What has that much publicised brain-drain from Australia left us with ?

Hi individual

Actually ANU remains second in Oz falling from 37th to 48th worldwide.

Melbourne University remains first in Oz - falling from 28th to 34th worldwide.

Caltech (USA) a serious technical university ranks first in world. Then Harvard and Oxford (equal second)

US and Asian universities dominated the top 100.

Much goes to the extreme alumni funding of US universities (very little in Oz) which draws the top lecturers and can pay for the largest facilities.

Its not our government's fault.

We can't match Harvard's alumni funding which may be around $500 million a year plus US government funding plus fees of around $60,000 per student.

Pete

Correction

Harvard University's interest paying "Endowment" - a largely tax-free bank account - in 2012 was US30 Billion Dollars.

Maybe comparable to Australia's whole tertiary education budget per year - its unclear http://www.budget.gov.au/2012-13/content/bp2/html/bp2_expense-15.htm .

plantagenet,
So how is this placing evaluated ? I mean if a business produces something of value then the sales & subsequent profits increase. How does churning out academics increase whatever Universities are supposed to be achieving. Is the number of graduates the benchmark or the quality of the graduates ? How then is this quality evaluated ? I work on a daily basis with University educated people & I fail to detect anything that they offer to be of any value to the society I frequent in. On the contrary, they are literally more of a burden then of use. They chew up a huge slice of the funding of projects by designing problems instead of solutions. The whole business seems to evolve around getting projects approved & then prolong everything to such a degree that it provides huge profits for extremely little input if any at times. I fail to see any degree of improvement or increased efficiency in literally anything University educated people get involved in. There really are only a handful of University graduates who actually achieve something that is beneficial to society. The bulk are a mere burden.

Individual

The most commonly used global ranking is the Academic Ranking or World Universities launched by Shanghai Jiaotong University. It's methodology is completely transparent.

You can find the 2013 rankings here:

http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2013.html

And you can find a discussion of methodology here:

http://www.shanghairanking.com/grup/index.html

The top ten, out of the top 500, are:

1 Harvard University
2 Stanford University
3 University of California, Berkeley
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
5 University of Cambridge
6 California Institute of Technology
7 Princeton University
8 Columbia University
9 University of Chicago
10 University of Oxford

stevenlmeyer,
As is easily deduced from my style of posting I am not an educated person. I have always wanted it explained how many graduates emerged from say Melbourne University say in the year 2000 & how many of them are now in useful positions where they're actually pulling their own weight rather than hold out for Government funding. Can you cite some example or provide some links where this kind of information is shown ? What have some of the high-achievers contributed to our society in the private sector ? How many graduates since 2000 & where are they making their mark in value for money ? All I get to see is trades people keeping it all going going you know those with no degrees. All I get to see from educated people is public money wasted, bad decisions being made & a huge rise in emission from the huge amount of travel they do at our expense & all the air conditioners going full blast in their offices.

Yes Individual, there are a lot of them, & not all in the public sector. I am a degree qualified engineer, but also a practical mechanic, having been taught by one of the best motor racing engineers, an amateur, in the country. As I had a bit of a clue, I was often lectured by an aging uncle of this very fact. That he bothered with me was high praise.

In his 70s or 80s, he was a Scottish trained fitter & turner. He had run the factory, with about 400 staff, of a company manufacturing some of the higher tech equipment used in service station, for many years.

When he was nearing retirement the company had hired 2 recent graduates, an engineer & a production planning engineer to take over from him. In Jock's words, one didn't know Sh## from clay, but knew this & was willing to learn. This one was almost useful after a couple of years according to Jock. He must have been good.

They went through 4 others, before Jock prevailed, & brought a factory foreman in to the office to fill the other place.

Jock had stayed 18 months after he was supposed to retire, & much later was still being called in to sort out some problems a few times a year.

I used to wonder if he was just a cranky old bugger, who did not want to let go, but from people in the trade, the products were less good after his going.

Like many of our companies, it is now part of a huge US corporation, bought out more because of their patents, than because of profits

Individual,

In western countries most graduates work in the private sector. In Australia the big exception is scientists. Australian companies do not have an R & D culture so if you want to do serious research you need government funding.

The US has a very lavishly funded public R&D sector which acts like a magnet drawing the brightest and best from all over the world. Almost every private sector technological innovation is based on some publicly funded basic research.

In most western countries doctors do, to a greater or lesser extent, work indirectly for the government.

All this being said it is a sad fact that for many entry level jobs you won't even get an interview unless you have a degree. I think this is terrible. It forces many people to spend a few years doing boring and worthless commerce degrees.

After due consideration I have come to the conclusion, albeit with some reservations, that in at some point in time into the future going forward there's a sense in which this article may possibly find itself in the ranks of the minor classics, or, to rephrase it: bloody marvelous!

Ignoring those posts that got way off topic onto "my uni is better than your uni", it is clear that very few posters can see that Peter's tongue is firmly in his cheek, and that as a consequence there is a great deal of self-righteous bumf. There have been lists like this around for many years - I first saw such a list at Auckland University when Peter and I were both there, and suspect that Peter found a yellowing copy of it recently and decided to try OLO. Good on you Peter!

There's more beating around the bush in bureaucracy than there is in the Bush.