Were euphemisms an Olympic sport, Emperor Hirohito would have taken the gold

We have left the tie-dyed Age of Aquarius and entered the Age of Euphemy. ABC, Sunday:

If someone told you Australia’s unemployment rate was only 7.1 per cent, and the economy was just two or three percentage points away from full employment, they would sound psychedelic. But that’s the definitional game. Full employment is not full employment. The unemployment rate is not what it seems.

We get it. We can solve unemployment in an hour. Parliament of Australia website, Sunday:

The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines a person who is unemployed as one who, during a specified reference period, is not employed for one hour or more, is actively seeking work, and is currently available for work.

Let’s spell it out. Cambridge Dictionary 2020:

Euphemism, noun: a word or phrase used to avoid saying an unpleasant or offensive word.

Can you win an election with a euphemism? Seems so. Peter van Onselen, The Australian, October 11, 2019:

Border protection (a euphemism for keeping asylum-seekers out) is arguably Labor’s weakest policy area; certainly politically.

A third of us will divorce, but we needn’t say so. The Sydney Morning Herald, July 31, 2015:

“Conscious uncoupling”, the phrase, washed up on the shore of the English language last year with all the style and subtlety of a rotting whale. Deposited by celebrity tsunami Gwyneth Paltrow, who used it to describe her split from Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, it furnished comic nourishment for many, while others wrinkled their nose at the pungent whiff of new-age euphemism.

But how many people do you know who have been subjected to enhanced interrogation? Moyers on Democracy, December 12, 2014:

The battle over whether to apply the name of “torture” or “enhanced interrogation” to waterboarding … has far deeper import than a mere choice of which terms will pass the test of legality or avoid public revulsion.

By all accounts it is quite unpleasant. Huffington Post, May 9, 2018:

Here’s What Waterboarding Is Really Like, According To People Who Suffered Through It: “You’ve got water in your lungs, your brain is on fire, your nasal cavity is on fire, your throat is completely swollen up,” a former army interrogator said.

This is just pollution, surely? CSIRO fact sheet, September 10, 2019:

Fugitive emissions are losses, leaks and other releases of methane to the atmosphere that are associated with industries producing natural gas, oil and coal.

Some euphemisms are funny and timeless. BBC May 13, 2015:

No sooner had former CIA chief David Petraeus apologised in March 2013 for “slipping my moorings” by having an affair with his biographer, the Sunday Times’ Camilla Long tweeted: “Best euphemism for illicit sex so far today.”

All good. It’s just a rough patch. The Economist, December 17, 2011:

In 1945, in one of history’s greatest euphemisms, Emperor Hirohito informed his subjects of their country’s unconditional surrender (after two atomic bombs, the loss of three million people and with invasion looming) with the words: “The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.”