The existence of so many pairs of words of this sort, which have the same sound and which yet come from such different origins--origins as far apart as the speech of the people of Holland and that of the South Sea Islanders, as we saw in the word _tattoo_--illustrates in a very interesting way the wonderful history of the English language. CHAPTER XVIII. NICE WORDS FOR NASTY THINGS. In the days of Queen Elizabeth there were in England certain writers who were called "Euphuists." They got this name from the title of a book, "Euphues," written by one of them, John Lyly. The chief characteristic of the writings of these Euphuists was the grandiose way in which they wrote of the simplest things. Their writings were full of metaphors and figures of speech. The first Euphuists were looked upon as "refiners of speech," and Queen Elizabeth and the ladies at her court did their best to speak as much in the manner of Euphues as they could. But all men at all times are unconscious Euphuists, in so far as they try to say ugly and unpleasant things in a way which will make them sound pleasant. This tendency in speech is called "euphemism," a word which is made from two Greek words meaning "to speak well." It is a true description of what the word means if by "well" we understand "as pleasantly as possible." The word _euphemeite_, "speak fair," was used as a warning to worshippers in Greek temples, in the belief that the speaking of an unfortunate word might bring disaster instead of blessing from the sacrifice. Every day, and often in a day, we use euphemisms. How often do we hear people say, "if anything should happen to him," meaning "if he died;" and on tombstones the plain fact of a person's death is nearly always stated in phrases such as "he passed away," "fell asleep," or "departed this life." People often refer to a dead person as the "deceased" or the "departed," or as the "_late_ so-and-so." The fact is that, death being to most people the unpleasantest thing in the world, there is a general tendency to mention it as little as possible, and, when the subject cannot be avoided, to use vague and less realistic phrases than the words _death_, _dead_, or _die_. One reason for this avoidance of an unpleasant subject is the superstitious feeling that mentioning a thing will bring it to pass. Or, again, if a misfortune has happened, many people feel that it only makes it worse to talk about it. While everybody avoids speaking on the subject, we can half pretend to ourselves that it is not true.