Euphemism

Euphemism
2005.11.07 2:19

A euphemism is a way to say something indiectly.
In Chinese 'restaurant' means 'hotel' of course in Japanese 'restaurant' means restaurant. Probably restaurant referred to restaurant when the term restaurant started being used and the term was exported to Japan and Japanese started using the term as restaurant, but because many people in China went to the hotel after they finished eating on the ground floor, they changed the meaning of restaurant into hotel.
Another interesting euphemism found in Australia related to the usage of this term. They say 'Let's go to the hotel' when they want to go to the public bar to have some beers. Because many bars are located on the ground floor of the hotel, probably they started using the term hotel instead of pub.
The population of Chinese is over 1 billion while that of Australia is over 10 million. That means Chinese population is as 100 times as large as that of Australia. Naturally Chinese had to oppress the population growth, they had to conseal their intension to go to the hotel, so they started using the term restaurant instead. While in the case of Australia, they needed to increase their population first and foremost, so they had to ask a woman to go to the hotel in order to procreate their offspring in the first place, so they preferred using the term hotel just in order to go to the pub. For them alcohol instead of procreation was the one that they couldn't refer to directly. I guess procreation had been encouraged historically in a new country like Australia.
There are many euphemisms but how to use them varies according to the circumstances of each country.