This one was chosen with lawyers in the room. Torture is a crime with a legal definition; “enhanced interrogation techniques” is a phrase with none. Describe the same acts under the second heading and a memo can conclude that no crime occurred.

The euphemism is unusual among chickens for how openly it was engineered. Most evasions accrete; this one was drafted. It also has the rare distinction of a documented ancestor: the Gestapo’s “verschärfte Vernehmung,” which translates as “sharpened” or “intensified interrogation,” was a phrase for the same purpose in the 1930s.

Mamet’s essay argues that the damage from language like this lands first on the speaker. Someone who says “enhanced interrogation” for long enough has made a decision about what they are willing to see. The 2014 Senate report is, among other things, six hundred pages of translation back into plain words.