Euphemismly Yours

So, a while ago I mentioned that I didn't really have a grasp on euphemisms. As soon as I posted that, I realized that admission was worse than embarassing... it was pathetic. Thing is, I'd just typed a lot of crap, and I kinda' liked that particular line, so rather than deleting that entire entry, and preserving my dignity, I left it for all to see... and embarked on a journey of personal growth. That, my friends, is a euphemism for "I asked someone to look up "euphemism" online for me, and tell me what it meant."

Eu·phe·mism Pronunciation: 'yü-f&-"mi-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek euphEmismos, from euphEmos auspicious, sounding good, from eu- + phEmE speech, from phanai to speak -- more at BAN: the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant; also : the expression so substituted.

Obviously, learning the definition of any word is only the half the battle. The best way to understand a word is to deconstruct its usage, right? And what's the best way to do that? To examine not just how it's used, but how it's not used. How much more did we learn about Mr Spock's character through the actions of his evil Mirror, Mirror twin? KnowwhatI'msayin'?

How to accomplish that... thinkthinkthink... I know! What happens when a press release stops getting politically correct (Hey! That's a euphemism for "unoffensive!"), and starts getting real? What happens when we strip the euphemisms in the news of the day down to their Superman skivvies? Read on!

Kelly Osbourne Back in Rehab*

Papa, don't preach -- Kelly Osbourne's completely screwed and involuntarily committed.

The 20-year-old spawn of Ozzy was abducted in her sleep by meddling interventionists, thrown in the trunk of a Hyundai, and eventually abandoned in the basement of a collapsing bordello in Tijuana, Mexico, according to Us Weekly.

Calls to a guy I met online who was funny, sweet, 23 and single and not living with his mom... there's no way that could happen to me twice... were not immediately returned late Friday night, but a neighbor who never really liked the Osbornes is quoted in the magazine saying, "I hated that show of hers; the one where she lived in Seattle, and... and... what did she do on that show, anyway? Absolute crap. Sweet Jesus I was happy to hear that was cancelled. Oh, is that thing on?"

A hooker leaving our building this morning tells Us Weekly, "I'm surprised anyone's even noticed she's, you know, not around. Is this even news? You a cop?"

She's a two-time loser. In April 2004, the wannabe-waitress was tricked into voluntarily entering a Pasadena treatment hospital's lobby when a friend told her there were gin-soaked Valiums on the other side of "that door with the painted bars over the window."

This time, she's in another dank, dimly-lit hellhole --the same place her brother Jack logged time in 2003 for his addictions to baby aspirin, Pier 1 incense and Shirley Temples-- which is, coincidentally, one of the dank, dimly-lit hellholes that has catered to that evil bitch who killed her husband and stole his songs.

Of course, the family's barely-vertical "father," Ozzy, is a junky of biblical proportions who needs to be lead around on a leash.

Although the overrated, mildly-entertaining if you were on the nod in a room where you could barely hear the television Osbournes ended its run on MTV in March, Kelly has been desperately scrabbling at ignominy. She had a cameo as an end table last fall on the now defunct ABC drama Life as We Know It. And her incarceration for what even the dullest of observers would have to logically assume will be for the rest of her natural life comes just six days before her new album, Someone, Anyone, Please Love Me, hits bargain bins at the Wherehouse. The disc, to be released by her new label, Sanctuary Records, is a follow-up to 2002's pile of steaming shit Shut Up, which was released by the company owned by that guy who married Mariah Carey.

Shouting at a security guard in the lobby of the Reuter's corporate offices, Osbourne called the pop-punk rock-flavored Shut Up a "marketing ploy" to capitalize on her quickly-dwindling 15 minutes of fame. Her new disc can only be worse, but hopefuly in a different way.

"Dance, electro, '80s music has always been what I heard coming from our maids' headphones -I guess they always wore them so they wouldn't have to interract with us at all- so it's really exciting for me that I get to be really, really bad at something else in public now instead of begging for parts in WB sitcoms and Chris Tucker movies," she told the wire service. "This album made me a lot of money up front; now I can buy a baby harp seal-skin messenger bag hefty enough to carry twice the bottles of hillbilly heroin."

While drunkenly staggering from the set of The View to her rented golf cart in the parking lot behind the studio, Osbourne revealed that she was high pretty much since she was old enough to work the "baby-proof" cabinet doors in her parents' bathroom.

"Yup... I've been on something oh, for... ever, really." Osbourne was quoted by a most-likely fictional, yet strangely-impressive media news outlet.

"They found something like 50-gazillion pills in my room when they burst in with those drug-sniffing dogs, and two SWAT teams."

Learning! It's neat!

*Wanna' see the original, pre-de-euphemismed article? Click here!