We are not free to speak. Taboos regulate what we can talk about and what words we can use. In our discussions of scores of aspects of human life, from urination to defecation, through sacking an employee to killing people, we use soft or respectable vocabulary to disguise a reality that we would rather not face up to.
In this revised edition, John Ayto looks at these forbidden areas and traces the interrelated network of euphemisms we use to cope with them. The result is both entertaining and enlightening.