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R. W. Holder, "How Not To Say What You Mean: A Dictionary of Euphemisms (3rd Edition)"

We often use euphemisms when dealing with taboo or sensitive subjects. We speak of "full-figured" women. We "fudge" on our income tax. We get "cold feet" before our wedding. In How Not to Say What You Mean, R.W. Holder offers an engaging volume that celebrates this human tendency to use mild, vague, or roundabout expressions rather than those which are blunt, precise, and true. Arranged in alphabetical order, this dictionary contains thousands of entertaining and informative entries ranging from such circumlocutions as a "fruit salad" (mixture of illegal narcotics), "arm candy" (a good-looking female companion), a "barrel-house" (a brothel), "birthday suit" (nakedness), and a "blue hair" (an old women).

Completely updated, the dictionary provides definitions, examples, as well as historical explanations where appropriate. Fun, fascinating, lively, and at times shocking, this new edition of How Not to Say What You Mean is a browser's delight and will appeal to all language and word play lovers, and anyone looking for a good laugh.

From the Back Cover

How Not To Say What You Mean unmasks the language of hypocrisy, evasion, prudery, and deceit. This hugely entertaining collection highlights our tendency to use mild, vague, or roundabout expressions in preference to words that are precise, blunt, and often uncomfortably accurate.

Entries, drawn from all aspects of life: work, sexuality, age, money, and politics, provide the real meaning for well-known phrases such as above your ceiling, gardening leave, rest and recreation, count the daisies, God's waiting room, washed up, and fact-finding mission.

From the Inside Flap

From its first appearance in 1987 as A Dictionary of American and British Euphemisms, Bob Holder's work has been the standard reference book tor those studying the language of evasion and understatement. This new edition, renamed How Not To Say What You Mean, has been completely rewritten. It retains old favourites while adding over a thousand new entries, which reflect modern euphemistic terms on such issues as marriage, race, homosexuality, drug-taking, and security of employment.

The quotations which accompany entries are both illustrative and interesting in their own left. Where appropriate, the etymology of a term is explained, giving a philological insight into this universally used, but little studied, branch of our language.

From Publishers Weekly

Delightful, quirky and exhaustive, Holder's dictionary of American and British circumlocutions is the kind of reference work that one can spend hours browsing through happily. This third edition includes thousands of alphabetized entries for both old-fashioned and contemporary terms. The term "uncover nakedness," for example, used be a standard Biblical translation for "copulate," though many people wouldn't recognize that use today. (Incidentally, "to line" also meant to copulate, and Holder cites part of Shakespeare's As You Like It as an example of such use: "Winter garments must be lined/So must slender Rosaline.") "Deep six," "underprivileged" and "rip off" still enjoy healthy use, and in Ireland "scuttered" still means "drunk." For Holder, however, this project is about more than just having fun with word games. In fine Orwellian spirit, Holder writes in his introduction that euphemism is "the language of evasion, of hypocrisy, of prudery, and of deceit," which makes it all the more important to be able to see through the embroidery.

Contents

& 8220;An Explanation

Bibliography

A Dictionary of Euphemisms

Thematic Index

 Abortion and Miscarriage

 Age

 Aircraft

 Animals

 Auctions and Real Estate

 Bankruptcy and Indebtedness

 Bawds and Pimps

 Boasting and Flattery

 Breasts

 Bribery

 Brothels

 Charity

 Cheating

 Childbirth and Pregnancy

 Clothing

 Commerce, Banking, and Industry

 Contraception

 Copulation

 Cosmetics

 Courtship and Marriage

 Cowardice

 Crime (other than Stealing)

 Cuckoldry

 Death

 Defecation

 Dismisssal

 Drunkenness

 Education

 Employment

 Entertainment

 Erections and Orgasms

 Espionage

 Extortion and Violence

 Farting

 Female Genitalia

 Funerals

 Gambling

 Illegitimacy and Parentage

 Illness and Injury

 Intoxicants

 Killing and Suicide

 Lavatories

 Low Intelligence

 Lying

 Male Genitalia

 Masturbation

 Menstruation

 Mental illness

 Mistresses and Lovers

 Nakedness

 Narcotics

 Obesity

 Parts of the Body (other than genitalia and breasts)

 Police

 Politics

 Pornography

 Poverty and Parsimony

 Pregnancy

 Prison

 Prostitution

 Race

 Religion and Superstition

 Sexual Pursuit

 Sexual Variations

 Stealing

 Sweat

 Urination

 Venereal Disease

 Vulgarisms

 Warfare

 Unclassified Entries& 8221;

Tags: Euphemisms, EnglishExpressions, WritingReference

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See Also:

H. W. Fowler & Ernest Gowers, "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (2nd Edition)"

Geraldine Woods, "English Grammar for Dummies"

Garner's Modern American Usage (2nd Edition)

Richard A. Spears, "NTC's Thematic Dictionary of American Idioms"

Tom McArthur, "The Oxford Companion to the English Language"

J. I. Rodale, "The Synonym Finder"

Webster’s New Dictionary of Synonyms: A Dictionary of Discriminated Synonyms With Antonyms and Analogous and Contrasted Words

Webster's Dictionary of English Usage

Rating:
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