Most people are taught to tell the truth when they are growing up with aphorisms like "Speak the truth and shame the devil" and fables like the little boy who cried wolf. We are given continual reminders of the unpleasant things that lie in store for those people who diverge from this straight-and-narrow path of truth.
And yet at the same time, we are given several sets of contradictory instructions in our formative years, including the prescription that we should not hurt other people's feelings if that be possible and that we should not swear or use dirty words. It is often in an attempt to reconcile these differing sets of instructions that people employ euphemisms.
The etymology of the word euphemism is a relatively straightforward one, coming to the modern English speaker from the Greek words for goodness and speech: A euphemism is simply the act of speaking in a good or pleasing way. This is a perfectly apt description for the group of words and phrases that probably comes first to mind when thinking of the term euphemism those words that apply to various functions of the human body. There is a whole series of euphemisms that apply to such functions and that are designed to sound good (Oxford English Dictionary: Compact Edition).
To take one example of these, one can look at the various terms for the process of urination a process that most people have been told not to discuss in public by the time that they themselves are out of diapers. The reasons for this prohibition are fairly complex psychologically and probably as ancient as civilization and lie no doubt in people's discomfort in being reminded that in terms of the way their bodies work they are very similar to other species of animals (Hirsch, Kett, & Trefil, 1988).
But while such discomfort may be understandable, it does leave the average person at a loss is trying to describe how the human body rids itself of liquids for which it has no meta...