euphemism part 2

Thus the function of this rhetorical device is to gently veil what something is by means of "nice sounding" or specious language. Sometimes the nature of the thing is blurred by using vague language (for example...), and other times it omitted by leaving out crucial information. 
There can be ambiguous statements, for example, "a girl in trouble" is a euphemism for pregnancy, "going to the other side" refers to death),
there are understatements (for instance, "asleep" for dead, "hurt" for injured, etc.),
there are comparisons (like "buns" for "buttocks", "weed" for "cannabis"),
there is metonymy ("lose a person" for dying, "drinking" for consuming alcohol...) and then there are metaphors ("beat the meat", "choke the chicken"...).

Euphemism draws on all the tools of language. This extends even to a language's phonetics. One form of euphemism employs phonetic modification to swear without actually swearing. This is achieved by removing or changing some parts of the sound structure of bad words so that they are still recognizable even though they are different.
One form of this is called shortening, or "clipping". Here one modifies the original by "clipping" off a syllable: "Jeez" for Jesus, "What the—" for "What the hell", ...
Sometimes the first letter of a bad word is used in place of the whole word: F-word, b-word, ...
In military communication whole words are used for their first letters, and a string of complete words is used to "spell" a word or acronym. This allows for a unique form of euphemism, for example, one could write: "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"  instead of WTF,...
Mispronunciations, "What the fudge", "Oh my gosh", "Frickin", "Darn", "Oh, shoot", "Be-yotch", etc.

Moreover, euphemisms can be created by using periphrases or circumlocution. For example, the pronunciation or the spelling of a bad word can be used to derive a new word, which sounds like the old and can be used in place of the old, but lacks its offensive connotations. 
(“fuck” to “freak”, to call a person a berk than to call a person a cunt, though berk is short for Berkeley      Hunt, which rhymes with cunt)

We can find euphemisms even in scientific and technical language. For example, a term that was used in the past to refer to contamination by radioactive isotopes was “sunshine units”. In particular, medical terms are often euphemistic in nature, owing to the extensive use of acronyms and Greek and Latin vocabulary which obscure rather shine light on their reference.  
(“MS” and “Multiple scleroses”...)

Sources:
Spears, Richard A. slang and euphemism, (New York 1981)
Halmari, Helena. 2010. Political correctness, euphemisms, and language change: The case of `people first´, Journal of Pragmatics 43 <a href="tel:(2011) 828-840">(2011) 828-840</a>