II. Ways to Express Euphemism

2.1 Figures of Speech
a) Metonymy
Metonymy is an important way to express euphemism, which is a rhetoric mean that express an object with something related instead of expressing it directly. (Hu 158). Metonymy method is closely related with their name to replace, for example, I like to read Shakespeare. Here is the author Shakespeare instead of his work. Again, such as “lost their jobs”, “dismount”, refer to a person who was removed from his post, here is Wusha cap, horse official symbol instead of official position, lost Wu sha cap, had not lost the horse riding is a tube. This way of euphemism expression meaning would have been more than image. Some words including the word “gate” show some related dirty events. For example, “Watergate” “White Watergate”, “Travel gate” ,“File gate”, “Zipper gate”. etc. Some more examples like “America does not want another Pearl Harbor.” Here, Pearl Harbor does not mean what it exactly means, which refers to an important event that brought terrible influence on American history. Here just uses a place to replace an event to make it sounds more mild as well as vivid. Another example like “Watergate changed American political.” Here, Watergate is also a place in American, which has the same function as Pearl Harbor. 论委婉语在中西方文化中的语用特征(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_34908.html