"NO ENCUMBRANCE."

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1565, 8 October 1912, Page 4

"NO ENCUMBRANCE."

If we are, not mistaken, objection has now and then been raised against tho phrase "No that appears now and then in advertisements for, or from, an employable 'married couple." It is an unpleasant phrase, by several tests, and its unpleasantness, from all the points of view, has lately had the honour of effective treatment through no less an agency than the London Times. A Hoard of Guardians had advertised for applications for a master and matron of the workhouse who should be "without encumbrance." a corrcs-i-mdonce ensued in the Times; and thufc journal made the matter the text of an article oh "Euphemisms," and gave this opinion upon the euphemism specially under notice:— Tho wording seems to prove that the people who make use of it are a little ashamed of its meaning. It would bo shorter and clearer to say "no children"; and there is nothing unpleasant about children which needs to bo disguised in words. Rather the unpleasantness is in tho objection to them; and therefore the phrase "Without encumbrance" is a euphemism employed in the interests of the person who uses it, not of some one else. It is, therefore, an example of the most dangerous kind of euphemism; for when wo disguise our meaning out of consideration, for our own feelings we disguise it to ourselves. "No encumbrance" seems to mean that children are nil-encumbrance to their parents. It really means that they are an encumbrance to the employer of the parents; but it has come into use liecause the employer does not wish to put the fact quite plainly to himself. would rather leave it vague in his own mind; and so ho uses n vagtio phrase to express it. The phrase, of course, is riot in the least obscure. Every applicant for a plnco knows what it means so far as he is concerned. Its vagueness is not nraclical but moral—that is to say. if betrays a slight moral uneasiness, which has become so slight Hint it expresses itself only mechanically in n phrase. The result of this deep and delicate bit of analysis was the public repentance of the offending Board. Tho sharp and direct Saii/rclny Review simply said that the. phrase "No encumbrance" is "an insult to childhood, and a wronm to pn.rolUfi and u tke State." Iu its opinion every

advertisement for a man and wife shuyjd stipulate: "No couples without eliiklien need apply." That goes too tar'. people without children ma-v long for Inum, and they have feelings anyway; But "No encumbrance" should go.