They’re easy to recognize or fashion on your own. They consist of an unpleasant idea, state of being, or image portrayed in meaningless or confusing language. For example, “crippled” becomes “disabled” but since even that implies a lack of ability it must be watered down further to “differently abled.” Now no one can be upset because nothing has been said.
That’s the game. Tap dance around descriptive language if the thing being described is unpleasant. No one would choose to be crippled so we must never name it.
This has actually been going on longer than most people think. “Your mom is dead,” is not uttered. “Your mother passed away,” is sooooo much less frightening and hurtful because the language is idiomatic; it doesn’t mean anything.
Sometimes you don’t even have to change the expression at all, just the order of the words. “Colored person” becomes “person of color.” Yes, they are exactly the same thing but the first is offensive and the second is beautifully egalitarian. Somehow.
While I can’t personally understand the mechanism or wrap my head around the motives for this sort of thing, a friend of mine, Eric Arthur Blair, has written about it at some length and I refer you to his works with confidence.
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