What's the difference between euphemism and irony?

Euphemism


Definition:

  • (n.) A figure in which a harts or indelicate word or expression is softened; a way of describing an offensive thing by an inoffensive expression; a mild name for something disagreeable.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) 9.41pm BST Dodgers 0 - Cardinals 0, bottom of the 2nd The "demeaning euphemism for overweight" Matt Adams lines out to Adrian Gonzalez for the second out of the inning.
  • (2) General Bantz Craddock, who instituted the restraint chair and twice-daily intubation in 2006 , said that he designed it to make hunger-striking less " convenient " – a not terribly subtle euphemism for more painful – and that "pretty soon [after these practices were introduced]…they decided it wasn’t worth it."
  • (3) To avoid discussing the hunger strike and its rationale, they introduced a euphemism when asked about it: “long-term non-religious fasting”.
  • (4) I liked working there in the "people department" (a new euphemism for the women's section in the age of feminism), since it offered handy distractions from the horror of the blank page.
  • (5) Craving boldness is too often a euphemism for wishing Labour's predicament were something other than what it is; that there was a way to promise immediate improvement in everyone's lives without giving them money.
  • (6) She's both a "certain type of woman" (divorced single mothers must only be referred to in euphemism) and an object of desire.
  • (7) On Tuesday Khamenei used the expression "heroic leniency", which is being interpreted as a euphemism for a softer stance on foreign policy.
  • (8) And they gave us the word “euphemism” in the first place – “to use a favourable word in place of an inauspicious one”.
  • (9) In fact, the word 'torture' does not appear anywhere, nor even the preferred diplomatic euphemism, 'ill-treatment'.
  • (10) There were euphemisms (“an incident”, “an inappropriate action on my part”); there were vague and reassuring references to the woman (“she has accepted my apology”); and there were mind-your-own-business obfuscations (“a deeply personal business”).
  • (11) Political rhetoric now as in Orwell's day exploits not only euphemism ("austerity") but dysphemism ("skivers") and loaded metaphor ("fiscal cliff"): in our time, weaponised soundbites are deliberately engineered to smuggle the greatest amount of persuasion into the smallest space, to be virally replicated on rolling news.
  • (12) There is a serious risk that, sooner rather than later, “self-employment” will simply be a euphemism for regular work in which the employee is unprotected by minimum-wage legislation or any other workplace entitlements.
  • (13) The NSC will also be put in charge of a £1.3bn prosperity fund that will focus on issues like “improving the business climate” – a term too often used as a euphemism for the promotion of ideologically-driven policies like the privatisation of public services .
  • (14) Labelling Matters , a campaign set up by Compassion in World Farming and the RSPCA among others, is calling for labels that discard euphemisms in favour, for instance, of “intensive indoor” for pork from pigs that never go outside and “permanently housed” for dairy cows that never graze in fields.
  • (15) According to state media, Ji Jianye is being investigated for "severe violations of discipline and law" – a euphemism for embezzlement, bribery and other official abuses.
  • (16) But what this kind of legislation would do is promote “information-sharing” – a euphemism for cutting a giant hole in our privacy laws that allow companies like Sony or 20th Century Fox (or Google or Facebook) to hand over all sorts of our personal information to the government with no legal process whatsoever.
  • (17) Work was a widely used euphemism for killing during the genocide.
  • (18) "Dressing for pleasure" and "fun fashion" get a bad rap, especially for women in their middle age, as it is generally assumed that this is a euphemism for women dressing like clowns and not realising that, at their age (huff, huff), they should be wearing beige cashmere.
  • (19) Records of military and congressional investigations into the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre illustrate that "scalping" and other terms were euphemisms for Colorado Volunteers mutilating Cheyenne people and wearing and displaying genitalia, fetuses, and other "battle trophies".
  • (20) Apart from using the words "organic" as a euphemism for "traditional", his ideas seem to have matured little in the 25 years.

Irony


Definition:

  • (a.) Made or consisting of iron; partaking of iron; iron; as, irony chains; irony particles.
  • (a.) Resembling iron taste, hardness, or other physical property.
  • (n.) Dissimulation; ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist.
  • (n.) A sort of humor, ridicule, or light sarcasm, which adopts a mode of speech the meaning of which is contrary to the literal sense of the words.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) And the irony of it is it doesn't interest me at all.
  • (2) The irony of this type of self-manipulation is that ultimately the child, or adult, finds himself again burdened by impotence, though it is the impotence of guilt rather than that of shame.
  • (3) The irony is that we have more media than ever before, but less insight.
  • (4) Richard Aylard, director of sustainability and external affairs for Thames Water, said the firm was aware of the irony that heavy rain had set in after the hosepipe ban was announced.
  • (5) One of the terrible ironies of the Iraq War is that President Bush used the threat of nuclear terrorism to invade a country that had no active nuclear program.
  • (6) That he was able to keep his secret treasures here, not in some remote corner of the globe but in the centre of the city that gave birth to the National Socialist movement, is both extraordinary and not short of a certain dark irony.
  • (7) He is wary of pretension, alive to all shades of irony.
  • (8) There was a thing at the time that said basically: 'Oh, the working classes obviously don't understand this is irony, so Harry's had to kill him off.'
  • (9) But the character – compounded of piercing sanity and existential despair, infinite hesitation and impulsive action, self-laceration and observant irony – is so multi-faceted, it is bound to coincide at some point with an actor’s particular gifts.
  • (10) The irony of her image being exchanged in return for commodities in the future,” she said, “seems to recall the way that actual slaves’ bodies were serving as currencies of exchange.” Larson arrived at a different conclusion about the honor.
  • (11) In the end, though, practical rethinkers have to get beyond the delights of irony and paradox in which Glasman too often wraps himself.
  • (12) There is a perverse irony that people who have cracked their iPhones are now being targeted by hackers.
  • (13) The irony of this is that today, when I was getting all of this horrible antisemitic shit that I’ve only ever seen in Russia, I was reminded that 26 years ago today my family came to the US from Russia.
  • (14) The irony is an uncomfortable one for policymakers.
  • (15) Because of our slightly younger average age and city location, we were supposedly one of the "new wave" WIs that had started springing up in the years before – groups that rejected crochet and did more modern activities, often with more than a tinge of irony.
  • (16) White House officials said that Obama, who was planning to work on the final draft of his speech on his flight from Washington to Oslo, would directly address the issue of the irony of being awarded the peace prize while escalating the war.
  • (17) Labour's pensions spokesman, Gregg McClymont, said: "The irony is that there are lots of good pension schemes out there that are being undermined by what is going on.
  • (18) She is being helpful, no doubt about that, but there is an unconscious note of power play – not to mention the sweet irony of my having provoked her into pulling not one but two phones out of her bag within seconds of us sitting down.
  • (19) "The irony of welcoming to the London 2012 Olympic Games an individual who is alleged to have led an organised and brutal repression of athletes because they peacefully exercised their internationally recognised right to freedom of expression and association during Bahrain's Arab Spring would be a blow to all athletes around the world, and irreconcilable with the UK commitment to human rights and claimed support to peaceful pro-democracy movements," the ECCHR said.
  • (20) A h, the irony of white people complaining about being interrupted by black people.