La Paranoia wrote:
> In his essay, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell
> showed the essential difference between Latinate and Germanic words.
> First, he vividly described three terrible events in predominantly
> Germanic language. Then he gave Latinate summaries of those events.
>
> The Germanic words make the reader see cruelty and suffering; the
> Latinate words remove human beings from the picture. Orwell proved a
> true prophet about Latinate euphemisms, which are still used today to
> transform an ugly reality into a bloodless abstraction, a "killer"
> into a "terminator."
>
> Latinate words can be misused for deception, but some ugly realities
> are best left covered over. The dentistís office is an excellent place
> to find examples of Latinate euphemisms. "Injections" have replaced
> "shots," and patients feel "discomfort" instead of "pain." Like
> Orwell's deceivers, dentists use long, Latinate words as a kind of
> Novocain to detach their patients from what is happening. "Discomfort"
> does hurt less than "pain" because using that word distances the
> sufferer from the reality and one can use that distance to become a
> co- creator of reality, not merely its victim.
What country are you talking about? In the UK, dentists talk about
injections. So do doctors. Have done for longer than I can remember.
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