Asklemmy @lemmy.ml GulbuddinHekmatyar @lemmy.ml 8 mo. ago

Speaking of euphemisms, do you guys know of any common dysphemisms?

Here's an example from me

If you want to de-normalize a nation's state/government, call them

spoiler

a regime

Other examples include: hospital --> loony bin

Edit: the more I think about it, the more I realize dysphemism are insults?

44 comments

call social programs 'entitlements'.
- And it's not wrong to call them that. We are entitled to social programs that we paid into. The issue is the popularity of people saying that some are "entitled" instead of "self-entitled".
  
  I don't disagree (that we should get what we paid for), but I think that term is meant to imply that beneficiaries of these programs are spoiled brats. Its idiotic, but then so is our politics. The distinction between 'entitled' and 'self-entitled' I think is way too fine a point for our national discourse.
- I like the term “earned benefits” for things like Social Security that you have to pay into.
Calling refugees "immigrants"

Calling making an effort to be inclusive with people marginalised in some way, "woke"
"Booze-hound" to mean someone with an alcohol addiction
- and someone who is addicted to drugs is sometimes called a "junkie".
  
  they usually just use my first name
Death tax
Back when I was in high school, I remember people calling introverts and goths "freaks" (i.e. people who are outside the "norm".)
- classic normie behavior
  
  I tell my friends that Asperger's is a super power and that the word, "normies" is an insult.
Some people call a therapist a "shrink".
There are a number of dysphemisms that are used to signify a person displaying symptoms of mental illness:

crazy

whack job (or whacko)

lunatic
- And I've heard someone with a physical disability is called (cringe) a "gimp". Ugh.
Getting "dumped" (for being on the non-consenting side of a break up.)
Motorcycle riders : temporary Australians; or meat crayons

Mental hospital : Napoleon factory (credit to Robert Heinlein)
- meat crayons
  
  Now, that's a colorful right there
  
  Mental hospital : Napoleon factory (credit to Robert Heinlein)
  
  Why wouldn't we want more Napoleons tho?
Relevant to your second example, a lot of people here tend to call therapists "paid friends".
"Socialism turns out to work pretty well and is beating our ass" --> “Now, no one — certainly not me — is discounting the power of markets,” Sullivan noted at the time. “But in the name of oversimplified market efficiency, a large non-market economy had been integrated into the international economic order in a way that posed considerable challenges.”
- “Now, no one — certainly not me — is discounting the power of markets,” Sullivan noted at the time. “But in the name of oversimplified market efficiency, a large non-market economy had been integrated into the international economic order in a way that posed considerable challenges.”
  
  "Despite the best that has been done by everyone [...] the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage,"
Popularism seems to just mean offering something actually appealing to the electorate.
- Populism typically means playing to the appetites of the electorate without any intent to actually benefit them. Empty promises are the heart of it.
  
  Yeah but it's used for things like Bernie wanting universal health care or Corbyn renationalising the railways. Which would benefit people.
  
  You mean demogogery?
- Identity politics is another culprit
Kick the bucket for die
San FranStinkTown
- Chitown for Chicago.
So-so no Frieren (I actually think it's goated, btw)

You'll see a lot of dysphemisms in the 2____4u communities as well.

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