Euphemisms to go offline for
Euphemisms are words we use in place of words that make us uncomfortable. Comfort words, according to author Ralph Keyes, who wrote Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms.
He was asked by Time.com of his favourites: "I love European lifestyle for sleeping around. I love at peace with the floor for being drunk. I like go offline for die. A high-school classmate wrote me that somebody he knew used to work for a life-insurance company and when it came time to pay benefits on a policy, they would say the policy holder was postretirement.
"Some of them are very creative. In the whole field of what we'd call bathrooms, the words change: I love where the Queen goes alone ... Winston Churchill was asked what kind of meat he would like at a dinner party, and he said 'I would like some breast, please'. A woman said to him, 'We don't talk that way here.' He said, 'But what would you call it?' And she said, 'White meat.' So the next day he sent her a corsage with a card saying, 'Pin this on your white meat.'"
