journal of linguistic studies

which actually have nothing in common with the topic and contents of their speeches, but
still give them additional weight and importance.
Excellent examples of such rhetoric are some of the statements of the former
American president George W. Bush regarding Saddam Hussein (until September 11
2001 American enemy number 1) and American policy towards the Iraq, in which Bush
applies different strategies.
In his address to the Senate on 26 th September 2002, justifying the security policy of
his administration, Bush refers to Saddam (whose name has been tabooed already during
the Gulf War in the early 1990’s) using the following sentence as a euphemism:
After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad.
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/27/bush.war.talk/
To some people, this expression may seem silly or childish and inappropriate for the
audience for which it has been intended. The fact is, however, that a statement formulated
in this way goes directly and deeply into the feelings of every man, thus turning the
conflict with Saddam and his regime into a personal matter of every true American and
patriot, and, even more importantly, eliminating every possibility of critique because it
would necessarily seem traitorous.
In the same speech, Bush calls Saddam “a man who constantly lies” and in this way
attacks even the moral and every other credibility of his and American enemy.
During the discussion in the Congress on the 3 rd day of the Gulf war in 1991 6 , Senator
Alfonse M. D’Amato calls Saddam a geopolitical glutton (Mr. President, Saddam
Hussein is like a glutton, a geopolitical glutton.) thus importing biblical connotations into
the debate about current events (voracity or gluttony is one of the 7 deadly sins) as
additional justification of American actions against the Iraq.
President Bush turned one of the darkest dates in the more recent American history,
11 th September 2001, into a euphemism for acts of terrorism and every other evil and
threat for the USA and their domestic and foreign policy; at the same time 9/11 is used as
justification for all activities and measures that the USA are taking for their protection. It
is quite clear that the longevity of all these and similar euphemisms is guaranteed by the
media which readily accept them and even gradually extend their use on contexts quite
different from those in which these expressions had been originally used.
In Croatian information media, there are also many interesting examples of
euphemization, which is mainly used to avoid terminology that had become rather
unpopular in our public, but euphemisms are also used as a possibility to avoid giving
completely clear and unambiguous information, especially when these pieces of
information are related to political or economic issues. Examples of such use of
euphemisms are found both in announcements for the public given by politicians or
economists themselves, and in the form of press releases and desk news. Here, one must,
of course, keep in mind the specific circumstances resulting from and conditioned by both
recent and more distant past, politics, party and other interests, and a number of other
factors that have led to the formation and usage of euphemisms characteristic for our
region. In this context, a good example from the category of concepts unpopular because
of their historical background is the internationally used geographical term the Balkans
(frequently used in the form West Balkans when it includes Croatia) which our politicians
and media avoid and replace with a more usual and more acceptable term the south-east
of Europe or simply the region, while our neighbouring states, especially Serbia, are
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