Using softened or bureaucratic language to describe actions or conditions that, named plainly, would be unacceptable — making morally significant things sound routine or neutral.
"Enhanced interrogation" for torture. "Collateral damage" for civilian deaths. "Downsizing" for mass layoffs. "Passed away peacefully" in corporate communications about a product-related fatality. The terms are chosen precisely because they reduce the emotional and moral weight of the underlying reality, making it easier to accept without full confrontation.
Language shapes the concepts available for thinking. When you have no unambiguous word for something, you have a harder time reasoning clearly about it. Euphemisms also signal social norms — using the official terminology implies it is the correct frame, and using plain language implies you're being inflammatory.
Technical, abstract, or bureaucratic language used to describe things with direct human impact. Ask: "What is this actually describing in plain English?"