Terminological inexactitude Terminological inexactitude Terminological inexactitude is a phrase introduced in 1906 by British politician Winston Churchill. Today, it is used as a euphemism or circumlocution meaning a lie or untruth. Churchill first used the phrase following the 1906 election. Speaking in the House of Commons on 22 February 1906 as Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office, he had occasion to repeat what he had said during the campaign. When asked that day whether the Government was condoning slavery of Chinese labourers in the Transvaal, Churchill replied: It has been used as a euphemism for a lie in the House of Commons, as
Euphemism a taboo word (such as a swear word) to form a euphemism is known as "taboo deformation", or a minced oath. In American English, words that are unacceptable on television, such as "fuck", may be represented by deformations such as "freak", even in children's cartoons.. Feck is a minced oath popularised by the sitcom Father Ted. Some examples of rhyming slang may serve the same purpose: to call a person a "berk" sounds less offensive than to call a person a "cunt", though "berk" is short for Berkeley Hunt, which rhymes with "cunt". Bureaucracies frequently spawn euphemisms intentionally, as doublespeak