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United Airlines 'Reaccommodated' a Passenger. Is That the Euphemism of the Year?

Each year, linguists, lexicographers and other language nuts gather at an annual conference under the banner of the American Dialect Society. The highlight of the confab is a raucous vote for choosing the “word of the year,” a now widespread tradition that this organization started decades ago. But in some ways, this event never ends, because the attendees are on the lookout all year long not just for possible “WOTY” winners but nominees for several subcategories: Slang Word of the Year, Most Likely to Succeed, Most Creative.
And on Monday, the CEO of United Airlines likely locked up a position in a category that one generally does not want to be found inspiring: Euphemism of the Year. As a viral video spread across the Internet, showing a man dragged off a plane, bloodied and protesting, after paying for a ticket to be on that plane, CEO Oscar Munoz released a statement apologizing “for having to re-accommodate” customers like him who found themselves bumped from a flight.
“I thought that ‘alternative facts’ wrapped up Euphemism of the Year,” says Mark Peters, who follows the vote closely and writes a column on euphemisms called Evasive Maneuvers. “But this one may be even better, in a worse way.”
euphemism (n.): the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant
“Alternative facts” – the already immortal phrase that Trump aide Kellyanne Conway used to describe falsehoods perpetuated by Trump’s press secretary – was euphemistic to the point that it may offend some people to call it a euphemism at all. Other language used by press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday, when he apparently referred to Nazi concentration camps as “Holocaust centers,” falls onto the same end of the spectrum. (Linguist Ben Zimmer, who presides over the event, notes that such items might find themselves in the running for an even more dubious honor known as “WTF Word of the Year.”)