Whether or not speakers understand a given word (or expression, if applicable) as being a euphemism or dysphemism does not depend on the word per se, but on the context, the use to which the word has been put or to the intentions of speakers.

In particular, Chamizo claims that a lack of cooperation can give rise to humour or varied literary formalisations deriving from an evident process of fictionalisation. Be that as it may, on the basis of such analyses the intention here is to highlight a principal characteristic of euphemisms, insofar as it is relevant to the object of study: the necessary cooperation of speakers.

On the other hand, an analysis is performed here on the triple classification proposed by Chamizo (2004: 46) so as to enquire into the origin of euphemisms: novel, semi- lexicalised and lexicalised.

The first group, called ‘novel euphemisms’, are those that are created ‘at a given moment, without them belonging to any previous conceptual network and without them being a priori predictable, but, however, are understood by those hearers who are familiar with the context in which they have been created’.

The second group, namely, semi-lexicalised euphemisms, are those that form part of the corpus of a language and ‘are habitually employed and understood as such by its speakers, but in which it is still possible to discern the literal and euphemistic meaning of a term or collocation’.

Lastly, lexicalised or ‘dead’ euphemisms are ‘those of whose euphemistic origin speakers are no longer aware because the original literal meaning of the word in question has been lost’.

In this study, only the first two groups will be considered, leaving the analysis of lexicalised euphemisms for another moment, since the euphemisms examined here are still in the process of being shaped in the midst of the public health crisis in which the world is currently immersed.

In sum, for a euphemism to become lexicalised a historical perspective and the necessary cooperation of speakers are both required.

1.2. Language-games

Both the rules for forming sentences and the properties of their respective meanings are integrated or incorporated into the minds of all speakers. However that may be, extra-linguistic determinants favouring, in contrast, an execution deviating from the rule established by beliefs, by the cognitive structure of the speaker and even by memory loss, can intervene. Specifically, Chomsky (1967, 1987) draws from the premise that the normal use of language is unlimited, for which reason it can produce and form new complex arbitrary sentences.

To this should be added Wittgenstein’s (1994) conception considered as a therapeutic and preponderant positivism by the Cambridge School. According to José Ferrater Mora’s (1981) Diccionario de Filosofía, for the Austrian philosopher,

[…] language can be compared with a game; there are as many languages as there are language-games. Therefore, to understand a work in a language is not primarily to understand its meaning, but to know how it works or how it is used in one of those ‘games’.