Euphemisms: Language Shadows and Thieves

     I have loved learning languages for as long as I can remember. Of course, first I learned the "mother tongue" -- in my case, English. But, with each language that I endeavored to learn, I gained that little bit additional understanding of a people and a culture (and of myself). Russian loves indirection and passive sentence structure. German goes for precision and building block structuring. Farsi brings a bit of poetry into a people who have often had to struggle. And so forth.
     There are many different stages of proficiency with a language. To become truly fluent in a language, it is necessary to fully live with those for whom the language reflects their thoughts. Three final tests for fluency exist -- music, humor, and euphemisms. Music is the test to make sure that you can interpolate sounds even when they are not standard and, indeed, possibly quite distorted. Humor tests the ability to think about matters in similar ways as "native" speakers. And euphemisms -- which are a reflection on the language's associated social interactions, taboos, and insecurities.
     I have not had the (or, perhaps, created the) opportunities to immerse myself into any language to the fully fluent stage (except for English). But, even in English, I find myself fighting against the world of euphemisms.
     From my point of view, euphemisms can fall into two areas -- which I call language shadows and language thieves. A language shadow substitutes one word or phrase, which still has the same meaning, for another. This is done to "soften" the phrase -- to not be "blunt". "Passed away" or "Meet their maker" instead of "died". You would never use the phrase "passed away" for anything other than "died". Although I may still prefer to be more direct, I don't consider language shadowing to be a bad thing since it does not take away from the language but overlays the meaning with social, spiritual, or religious overtones.
     Euphemisms as language thieves substitutes a word or phase, which has its own distinct meaning, for another word or phrase which is "uncomfortable" to be said. In this manner, the original meaning of the euphemistic phrase is either lost (can no longer easily say what the words would normally mean) or require mental substitution which depends on sentence, or conversational, context. Euphemisms as language thieves could also be called a form of "doublespeak" or even "newspeak" -- as defined, and used, by George Orwell in his book1984.
     Language thieves are used when a subject makes us uncomfortable -- "sleeping with" rather than "having sex with". They are used when we want to avoid moral consequences -- "collateral damage" instead of "murdering civilians and bystanders" or "friendly fire" instead of "killing our allies instead of our declared enemies". They are used when we want to avoid responsibility -- "I'm washing my hair" rather than "I am not interested in you, please find someone else".
    Once again, the distinction between a language shadow and a language thief is whether the substituted word or phrase has, or should have, its own meaning. It is extremely difficult (a person has to double the number of words to explain what it is NOT) to use the phrase "sleeping with" to actually mean individually sleeping together without any sexual contact. It could be argued that "friendly fire" is a language shadow since it is an absurd phrase that has no inherent use or meaning. Perhaps we should refine the definition of a language thief to include substituting words or phrases that have no real use or meaning?