Euphemism is an important rhetoric trope, which exists in every language, so it plays an important role in language expression and sustains the normal social communication. The word, Euphemism, originated from Greek, euphemismos, which has the meaning of good/pleasant speech.

That is too say, people will use good or pleasant words to express the meaning what they would like to convey, to avoid any unpleasant or confused words.. For example:

In his scale of values he places power and economics at the top of the list.

In this sentence, the word “economics” is used for replacing the expression of money, which will weaken the tone and stress the point that this person is very greedy and put the money at the first place.

Another example: in the scene of the picnic, the girlfriend said to her boyfriend, “wait a minute, I want to pick a daisy”. If we translate the sentence into “等一等，我想去摘一朵花。”, it would be fuzzy and the wrong translation. “to pick a daisy” is an euphemism and the girl want to express the meaning of “go to a restroom”

Also the word “death”, people would like to use other words to express the meaning, avoiding the sadness and sorrow. In Chinese, the word for “Death” are “驾崩”，“羽化飞天”，“圆寂”，“仙逝”，“涅槃”，“香消玉损”and “玉碎珠沉”. And the English words are as follows: to pass away, to depart, to go to sleep, to go to heaven, to be no more, to join the majority, to go to glory expire, corpse, kick the bucket and breathe one’s last.

There are also many other words. we will call the secretary as “administrative assistant”, maid as “domestic-help”, old people as “senior citizen”, cleaner as “sanitary engineer”. When we talk somebody out of job, we usually us the following words to express. “between jobs”， “to be developing a new project”and “to be self-employed”，amounts to the Chinese words “待业” “找工作当中”.

And the word “butcher” is called as “meat technologist”, also the Chinese word “贫民窟” is called as “substandard housing” and “special area”. When we talked about the lady who is pregnant, we can say she is eating for two or in the family way.

In advertising field, the old car is called pre-owned car. Also these words “extractive industry”, “women‘s beauty industry” and “tourist industry”