Linguistic Censorship: war of words

“All linguistic expressions are, to some extent, ‘euphemized’—they are modified by a certain kind of censorship, which stems from the structure of the market, but which is transformed into self-censorship through the process of anticipation. Viewed from this perspective, phenomena of politeness and tactfulness, of choosing the right word for the right occasion are not exceptional phenomena … Tact is nothing other than the capacity of a speaker to assess market conditions accurately and to produce linguistic expressions which are appropriate to the expressions which are suitably euphemized.”-J.B. Thompson (1991: 19-20)

Blog di Shaughn McArthur sui problemi della censura, del controllo e dell'eufemismo linguistico. Politica linguistica. Pragmatica del linguaggio.