psychojargon

There's a condition in combat—most people know it by now. It occurs when a soldier's nervous system has reached the breaking point. In World War I, it was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables. Shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. Shell shock!![...] And then, finally, we got to Vietnam. Given the dishonesty surrounding that war, I guess it's not surprising that, at the time, the very same condition was renamed post-traumatic stress disorder. It was still eight syllables, but a hyphen had been added, and, at last, the pain had been completely buried under psycho-jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I'd be willing to bet anything that if we'd still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have received the attention they needed, at the time they needed it.

2004, George Carlin, “EUPHEMISMS: Shell Shock to PTSD”, in When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, pages 39, 40