Coding Scheme for Euphemisms

McGlone and Batchelor define euphemisms as a linguistic tool employed out of the reluctance “to utter more semantically transparent terms for certain unsettling topics”. In other words, a euphemism is an expression that refers to something in a more polite way instead of its literal name. Common usage of euphemism occurs with sex, pregnancy, profanity, bodily discharge, etc.

The following instructions must be abided in order for the coding of euphemisms to be successful.

• Details about the e-mails are to be ignored. This includes the sender’s address, the recipient’s address, the blind/carbon copy recipient’s address(es), the timestamp, and the subject.
• The salutation and the closing portions of the email must be disregarded.
• Except for e-mail details, salutations, and closings, each sentence in the body of the email is to be considered for euphemism.
• The sentence to be considered must be in English.
• If a sentence does not contain a euphemism, it is to be coded with the number 0.
• If a sentence does contain a euphemism, it is to be coded with the number 1.
• Every sentence must be coded as a euphemism with 0 or not a euphemism with 1.
• Each sentence must be coded once.

Once our team coded the e-mails, a reliability percentage of 91.4% was calculated.

A few examples of agreed euphemisms are listed below.

• so we're of age already.
• Work some team lead magic.
• haha he's smokin' here

Several examples of disagreed euphemisms are listed below.

• So success or epic fail?
• If we can leave them at home, I can anticipate several fewer moans and groans tomorrow at the beginning of class
• Do you know how else I would go about this?
• Thank you for your time.
• just give a text/voicemail/email so I have a heads up.
• My blank check awaits.
• AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!ELEVEN!!!
• Just a really minute detail