4 ms·
John McWhorter refers to it as the Euphemism Treadmill but I can't say if it's a widely accepted term in the field
by bananarchist 4y ago
John McWhorter refers to it as the Euphemism Treadmill but I can't say if it's a widely accepted term in the field
- Someone 4y agoI think the treadmill aspect also happens for words used by teenagers. They use, for example, “hip”. Once their children are teenagers, they don’t want to be like their parents, so they use “hot”. Their children, in turn, pick yet another word, making “cool” the new “hot” (chances are I’m not mentioning these in the historically correct order) The same process seems to apply to social networks (“Facebook is for parents”) In all these cases, there’s a mechanism that makes a word or product tabu within certain social circles, forcing them to come up with a new term. The process that leads to things becoming tabu stays, however, so the cycle repeats itself. I wouldn’t know what it would be, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were a more generic term that applies to all of these.
- Natsu 4y agoThe euphemism treadmill is what I've heard most often, as well.
- perilunar 4y agoCoined by Stephen Pinker in 1994 apparently: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill Also known as "euphemism cycle": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill