What's In A Word?

By Author: Steven Johnson
Total Articles: 490
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The English language is great for those that speak it. Flexible and supposedly easy to learn, it gives everyone multiple choices about the words to choose whenever they open their mouths or put virtual pen to paper. We can pick words that sound nice and pleasant. We can pick words that are likely to shock and offend. It all depends on what we are writing and why we are writing it. As a simple example, some people feel more comfortable with the idea that a loved one is asleep with Jesus. Others simply think them dead. You might not believe really bad things could happen to those finding themselves inside a correctional facility, whereas we all know what happens to pretty boys in prison. You might be puzzled by negative patient outcomes until you realize the local hospital lost yet another patient.

The thing about erectile dysfunction as a medical condition is that it's perfectly alright to talk about men's private parts in a medical textbook, but it's quite another to discuss the issues in public. Just what words would you use on a television show to indicate the nature of the problem or its possible cure? In comedy shows, ...
... the answer is to have the man affected so overcome with embarrassment that he keeps hesitating at the key points, leaving it to the adult members of the audience to fill in the gaps. But if you're in a drama, this is not the solution. There was a good example of this in Grey's Anatomy when a random man she had bedded suddenly appeared in the Emergency Room complaining that his erection would not subside. Meredith was therefore left with both the medical problem to solve and her friends reactions to manage. The medical drama then gave us a clear factual set of treatments for what is laughingly called priapism - a painful condition that, if untreated, can result in permanent . . .

In years gone by, an ability to produce an erection was considered one of the grab-bag of conditions falling under the heading of impotence. For those of you that like the technical definition, it's an inability to copulate or being infertile. Marketers decided that "impotence" was one of these no-no words with unfortunate associations with more general weakness. The impotent were powerless and ashamed. If you want to sell a product to a man, you don't want to suggest he is powerless. You want to define the problem in a neutral way and appeal to the power of his credit card to buy the cure. In this case, the marketers decided we should all call the problem erectile dysfunction which is even better if you shorten it to the initials ED.

So there you have it. Instead of talking about your penis staying too flabby to be able to penetrate your partner until you took Viagra, we can be all nice about it and say ED came to stay for a few days until the little blue pills were delivered in a plain brown wrapper. All us adults know what these code words mean and we can have this conversation without it upsetting or offending the children. Such is the power of the euphemism when it comes to selling cheap Viagra online.