dysphemistic

• “What I am getting at, to paraphrase the infinite wisdom of Pigs is pigs, is that shit is shit, and there is nothing dysphemistic about it (unless used "in talking about one's opponents") -- that is, it is the context that determines whether it is dysphemistic, which is again dependent on whether it was the intention of the speaker to use a taboo word in place of socially acceptable one.”

  Verbatim: VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIX No 1

• “Further, the dysphemistic way that conservatives are characterized by Bob Burnettmakes it clear that this is not a serious, evenhanded political commentary.”

  What Do Liberals Believe?

• “It was both a humanitarian intervention (toppling one of the world's most brutal dictators) and an act of self-defense ( "the administration's grandiose rhetoric about pre-emption" is merely a dysphemistic way of saying this).”

  The Wall Street Journal: The Case for Inhumane Intervention

• “(Or would Americans just think of Republicans vs Democrats in Congress?) #17: Try 'dysphemism, dysphemistic' in analogy with 'to euphemize'.”

  RealClimate

• “Great profanated balls of execrating dysphemistic maledictory cacophemisms”

  Gypsy Scholar

• “In any event, even these criteria are abandoned later on in the book (e.g., in the chapter on "Bodily Effluvia") where, for example, john, jakes, bog, crapper are said to "tend to the dysphemistic," whatever that means.”

  Verbatim: VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIX No 1

• “In other words (to keep on explaining this simple but hard-to-articulate point), in order for an expression to be dysphemistic it must be the intention of the user to employ it to an insulting, derogatory, or otherwise offensive purpose.”

  Verbatim: VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIX No 1

• “Also absent is comment on the borrowing of terms as dysphemisms (or as euphemisms): for example, gurry is a neutral term for the gut (s) (or, if you prefer, entrails) of an eviscerated fish, but it becomes cynically dysphemistic when used, as it is in medical slang, to refer to human organs or parts removed in surgery.”

  Verbatim: VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIX No 1

• “Once in a while, however, a place gets a dysphemistic name, such as the Badlands in South Dakota, or Great Dismal Swamp, which is a 1500-square-mile section of Virginia and North Carolina.”

  Verbatim: VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XVI No 1

• “Old is a dysphemistic no-no unless you’re oldest-old, in a category of those over eighty-five, and wishing you were eighty again.”

  Simon & Schuster: No Uncertain Terms

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