Euphemism exists to prettify an object or idea the conscious mind finds unwieldy. But it is time-sensitive. The unconscious, here as everywhere, will have its say; and as neither the underlying phenomenon nor the desire to clothe it changes, the neologism itself must, through use, become tainted and so unacceptable to the squeamish.

We know of the continual revision of the description of Negro, colored, person of color, African-American, black among the whites. (Black Americans have always referred to themselves, among themselves, as black. And American Indians, at home, have always called themselves Indians.)

Native peoples in North America were once called aboriginals, then natives, Indians, Native Americans, and First Peoples. But ab-original means “from the first,” and “native” must indicate a priority of ownership. The revisions exist because the underlying situation remains unresolved.

The continual updating of Polite Usage may be courtesy, or it may be sanctimony. But it indicates an underlying recognition of the challenges of assimilation. (A young married man was asked by a friend how he referred to his mother-in-law. He said for the first year he called her “you” and, afterwards, “Grandma.”)

Atheist, agnostic, and post-religious Westerners love to admire the myths of ancient cultures. Golly, how quaint, they may think, that the gods of these (charmingly unspoiled) first peoples, natives, Indians, and Native Americans were named for the natural phenomena, Storm, Sun, Moon, Wind; and their various human qualities, Vengeance, Mercy, Mischief, and so on. Our love of their ways is an example of our ineradicable polytheism.

We know Snow White’s friends were named for their qualities. (A magnificent joke from Mary Ann Madden’s New York joke competition: Famous farewell speeches: Snow White: Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, gesundheit, goodbye . . .)

But what of a group named Happy, Lucky, Twisty, Judge . . . ? These are, in the original Hebrew, the names of Jacob’s sons, the twelve tribes of Israel. And how about a gang including members named Rocky, Twinsy, Killer — these, the disciples of Jesus?

Clement Clarke Moore’s tiny Christmas reindeer, Cupid, Comet, Donner, and Blitzen, are merely named poetically, that is, for rhythmic and lyrical interest, as are Nabokov’s list of Lolita’s classmates (Grace Angel, Floyd Austin, Jack Beale, etc.), which he claimed as a beloved creation. See also Mr. Kipling’s transformation of the shipping news into delicious poetry. “Mine Sweepers”:

Dawn off the Foreland — the young flood making
Jumbled and short and steep.
Black in the hollows and bright where it’s breaking —
Awkward water to sweep.
“Mines reported in the fairway,
“Warn all traffic and detain.
“’Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.”

(It was set to music by Elgar. An actual instance, perhaps, of the bon mot that there are actors who can read the phonebook.)

My father and I once had dinner with a middle-aged couple, the man a business associate of his. His wife was named Michael, an anomaly in mid-Fifties America. Throughout dinner my dad referred to her as “Mike.” Afterwards I suggested that it was ill-conditioned to call attention to the oddity of her name. He said that he assumed she liked the attention, as, if not, she would have changed her name.

Among themselves gay men have traditionally enjoyed the linguistic privilege of referring, for emphasis or fun, to another of the group as “she,” as blacks, in their group, once used the N-word. This last instance, the denaturing of those two syllables, utterance of which Bring Ruin on any White, is the healthy opposite of euphemism and, in fact, its indictment. There is no elaboration or inversion possible beyond the term “the N-word”; it is a prohibition.

All advertising now features black Americans, with the Caucasians as props, just as, once, and recently, the opposite was true. Bravo, Western civ. The current hegemony of blacks in commercials is a pretty good example of The Biter Bit, or, as on the South Side of Chicago, “Guess What . . . !” It is also a superb diagnostic tool.

The Left insists on the ineradicable ubiquity of white supremacy, but they are taxed to define it, and, so, self-excused from citing instances. To the contrary, corporations exude untold fortunes on advertising. If white supremacy actually existed, why would they feature only blacks in their ads? It is not that black America wouldn’t, thus, be induced to buy their products, but that the myriad of white supremacists would not.

The advertisers and the megacorporations that employ them may inveigh about the universal crime of white supremacy all day long. But when their money’s on the table they won’t act in accord with their delusion. “They may be dumb, but they ain’t stupid.”

Boxing Day was the traditional English celebration of inversion. On the day after Christmas, the wealthy dressed as servants and waited on their household staff. White supremacy is Boxing Day.

Bosie’s “love which dare not speak its name,” practice of which sent his friend Oscar to prison, can now speak its name with so little concern that it need not speak its name. Their release from the requirement for euphemism may be noted in gay America’s indictment by the trans community as objectionably normal.

We find in Genesis: “God formed every wild beast and bird of the sky out of the ground, and brought them to Adam to see what he would name each one. And whatever he named each living creature would remain its name.”

The names Adam gave them are the Bible’s first mention of human speech. We infer that God intended speech for utility, on which basis we may assume that Adam named the creatures. He must have named them according to their attributes, quiddities, appearances, or in some elaboration of these for his amusement. As God must have done in the case of the Serpent, upon whom he also bestowed the power of Speech.