'DICTIONARY OF EUPHEMISMS' Book entertains with thoughtless words

British appeal, taboo subjects and Pentagon-speak fill the book's pages.
By CHARLES MATTHEWS
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
"How Not to Say What You Mean: A Dictionary of Euphemisms," by R.W. Holder (Oxford, $18.95)
"Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts," said Talleyrand. That's the premise of R.W. Holder's "How Not to Say What You Mean: A Dictionary of Euphemisms." As its title suggests, this is no stodgy reference book but rather an entertaining, useful and occasionally opinionated look at the way language dodges reality.
It should appeal to anyone who reads a lot of British books (or watches a lot of public TV). As Oscar Wilde observed, the English have everything in common with Americans, "except, of course, language." Americans who have puzzled out the references in British novels to trousers as "bags" will appreciate learning that the word was a Victorian euphemism, though why bags should be less offensive than trousers remains a mystery.
Taboo talk
Obviously the book is full of words and phrases for taboo subjects such as various bodily functions. But it also reveals that many words we no longer consider euphemisms started out that way. Brassiere, for example, was a French word for a sleeved garment -- bras is French for arm. The English, trying to avoid the word breasts, adopted the word to denote a covering for the unmentionable.
The book is also unsparing in its catalog of such Pentagon-speak as anti-personnel, civilian impacting, collateral damage, friendly fire, nuclear device, surgical strike and so on. Neither weapons of mass destruction nor the boiled-down version, WMD, makes the book, but maybe next edition. (This is the third edition of a book first published in 1987.)
Incidentally, I found the quotes from Talleyrand and Wilde in another great recently published reference book, "The Penguin Dictionary of Epigrams" (Penguin, $16 paperback).