Euphemania
Our Love Affair with Euphemisms
Ralph Keyes

Little Brown and Co.
January 2011/ ISBN 9780316056564
Nonfiction/ (Writing/Language)
Amazon

Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Language Informing Writers Those Who Love Language Improve Their Writing

If you don’t love language, it’s a good bet you aren’t a writer. But if you’re a writer, reading more about linguistics may not be high on your list of priorities. It’s so integral to the way you think, you believe you don’t need it.

I believe that Euphemania by Ralph Keyes will change your mind. Written with humor, (because euphemisms are just naturally funny) this book will certainly entertain. If you’ve ever wondered about the intricacies of our euphemisms—the origins as an example—this is the book for you. But who would have guessed that it also might be the perfect book to hone the skills of writers of dialogue and humor?

Academic writers? Use it as a quick-study on how to write a book that will sell to a wide market. The secret? Voice. Humor. Colloquialisms. Yep, and euphemisms. A book does not have to have the lack of moisture content (dry!) of a text book to be a textbook. I know about academic expectations. My daughter is a Ph.D. candidate. She explains it to me all the time. Having said that, if you’d like to actually sell something rather than giving everything away to unappreciative academic journals, try rewriting your brilliant theory for the general public.

Anthropologists and linguists will love this book, too. But mostly, it’s just fun learning why we use asterisks for words like sh*t and the euphemisms like the f-word. It’s also tons of fun to identify phrases we’ve stopped thinking of as euphemisms (love handles, anyone?), just because they are so part of our everyday language.

If I were rating this book for an Amazon review, I would give it a true (not a fake) five-star rating. For usefulness. For fun. For the love of language.