Pardon my all-black clothes. I'm in pre-mourning because one of my favorite shows ever — 30 Rock — is on the verge of ending. I'll dearly miss this show for its potent satire of TV, the (literally) blue hallucinations of Tracy Jordan, the narcissistic psychopathy of Jenna, the performance of a lifetime by Alec Baldwin, and especially Tina Fey's role as star and creator.  Continue reading...

Everyone likes puppies, cookies, Batman, and humorous quotations. Therefore, the fourth edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, edited by the late Ned Sherrin, should be enjoyed by everyone. This Brit-heavy volume leans closer to the witty than the funny, but it's both a serious reference book and a hall-of-fame bathroom book.  Continue reading...

Let's talk angels.

The angels I'm referring to are close to the ground, though mostly inspired by the high-flying, heavenly sort: these angels are all euphemisms. Euphemistic senses of angel fly all over the lexical wilderness, though most of the following would be unwelcome on a shoulder.  Continue reading...

As a euphemism columnist, I admire the work of anyone who catches dodges, evasions, and Orwellian whoppers in their butterfly nets. So I was thrilled, during the Republican National Convention, to find The Week's list of ways the media didn't say veep candidate Paul Ryan was a liar.  Continue reading...

When it comes to the indelicate matter of pregnancy, English speakers are constantly coming up with creative circumlocutions for the condition of expecting women. In his latest monthly installment of under-the-radar euphemisms, Mark Peters takes a look at some of the more outrageous gestational obfuscations.  Continue reading...

When I'm looking for rare euphemisms to include in this column, I don't turn to drink, but I do turn to Drunk: The Definitive Drinker's Dictionary. Paul Dickson's amazing collection of 2,964 terms for being tipsy, lubricated, guzzled, or uncorked is a euphemism-palooza.  Continue reading...

I usually tiptoe away from the gruesome side of life, preferring to read about kittens and puppies playing peekaboo with babies and bunnies. I avoid horrific, soul-numbing, existentially meaningless stories about topics such as catastrophes and Kardashians. However, one such story — the Florida face-eater episode — had one redeeming feature: the spreading of bath salts as a Euphemism of the Year candidate.  Continue reading...