The Consumer Price Index does not, of course, keep track of inflation by watching trends in the prices of everything. With euphemisms, too, a handful of big items account for a disproportionate share of all euphemistic activity. Some might anticipate that in a society like ours the SEI would show gains quarter after quarter. But in any event internal shifts would be abundant and revealing. Euphemisms are fragile organisms, surprisingly sensitive to the outside environment.
Some euphemisms eventually attract such knowing derision that their useful life is abbreviated.
Given the avidity with which professional lexicographers today comb through books and periodicals for evidence of emerging and fading terminology, compiling a Semantic Engineering Index would no doubt be quite simple. The SEI rose three tenths of a point this month, paced by a rise in the T word and public jitters about peace enforcement. I see a cult favorite already. All rights reserved.