Language Evaluation Essay

In a world full of computers, cell phones, and palm pilots communication has never been easier than it is today. There seems to be an endless amount of information that can be easily accessed by a click of a button. While reading various pieces of writing the reader may notice one of the many common misuses of the english language. Euphemisms, baseless conclusions, and words appealing to popular passions are some of the most common misuses of the english language.
To begin, euphemisms can be found in everyday writing and the average reader may not even know that what they are reading contains euphemisms. An example of a euphemism would be, “Things start to go south”. This euphemism was taken from an album review titled “Dem Nation Boyz – Ready 4 Drama”(Appendix A). The phrase things start going south is a good example of a euphemism because it is a nice way of saying the album is not all that good. Another example of a euphemism would be, “The home team came up short� From the article “Power outage against the Leafs� (Appendix B). This is a very common euphemism that can be seen daily, and it is simply saying that the home team lost the game but the words used make it seem not as harsh. Another examp

Finally words appealing to popular passions are often used in an attempt to get the reader / listener to agree or support what is being presented to them. One example of this came from the Ontario PC web-sight, from the section titled “Tax Cuts - Click here for the FACTS”(Appendix F). The words appealing to popular passions from this section are “They will revoke personal income tax cuts, taking away more of your hard-earned dollars”. The words used in this section especially the end where is says “taking away more of your hard-earned dollars” appeals to popular passions in an attempt to create a disliking for the liberal party because they will be “taking away more of your hard-earned dollars”. An other example of this misuse of the english language would be “McGuinty supports federal Liberals' young offender laws that allow violent offenders on our streets.” Once again this is from the Ontario PC party’s web-site (Appendix G) and is using words that attempt to put fear in the reader as they hear of violent offenders in “our streets”. The english language is littered with many fallacies, many of which fall under the category of one of these three: euphemisms, baseless conclusions, and words appealing to popular passions.

Euphemisms, baseless conclusions, and words appealing to popular passions are three of the many very common misuses of the english language. Whether you are reading the newspaper, watching a political