By their euphemisms you shall know them

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I'm watching the Belgian TV series The Break. Not bad, but...

At several points the subject of abortion comes up. The characters say things like, "We decided not to keep the baby," or "Do you want to keep the baby?"

"The baby" in this view is a consumer good, like a sofa or a dishwasher. Somehow (God knows how: a drunken shopping spree?) the characters acquired "the baby." But having gotten a better look at the deal, well, perhaps it wasn't such a bargain after all... better return it to the store now, since at present, the archaic return policies only allow returns during the first nine months after purchase. (The campaign to allow later returns has already begun, by the way.)

Of course, euphemism-free, those statements really mean, "We decided to kill the baby," and "Do you want to kill the baby?"

But so long as we hide our barbarisms under lying words, we can go on being happy consumers!

Comments

  1. Thomas L. Knapp3:43 AM

    Well, at least they notice that it's a baby. Over here in the US, there seems to be a great deal of effort made to avoid noticing that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ken B3:29 PM

    Wait three years. "So you decided not to keep the parasitic growth?"

    Disclaimer. I'm pro-choice but Gene is surely right about euphemisms.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nathan Conroy1:13 AM

    Beside the point: the blog has kept the same name for a week or something. What's up with that?

    ReplyDelete

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