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er, "Euphemism is not restricted to the lexicon. There are grammatical ways of toning something down”. Therefore, euphemizing should not be limited to lexical ways; it can also be achieved by grammatical ways. 2.4.1 Tense In English, tense can lend a little euphemistic color to the expressions for something undesired. Especially when people use want, hope, think and wonder or words like that they may also make use of the tense to sound more euphemistically. For example, I wondered if you would mind helping me? or "I wondered if you could help me?"[14]. Asking help this way, people won’t feel so embarrassed if they were refused. 2.4.2 Syntactical negation This method can lesson the painful impact of the language that is not welcomed. We say she is not pretty (Actually she is very ugly), but that is acceptable, because not pretty does not equal to “ugly”, it could be “plain” too. Not pretty has a wider range of meaning than ugly. Similar usages are as the following: I don’t think, I am afraid, I am not sure, I don't like,etc. 2.4.3 First personal pronouns The use of first personal pronouns like we, ours, us, etc, can also make our speeches sound more euphemistic. You would feel more welcomed if you used we or our quite often. If a doctor said to you how do we feel today, you would feel very warm and comfortable, because it makes you think that this kind doctor takes your illness as mutual concern. 3 Communicative functions of euphemisms Language is for communication, whereas euphemisms may lead to better communication. Using euphemisms can avoid being presumptuous in language communication. When we have to touch some topics that are unpleasant, we tend to choose more euphemistic expressions to refer to those painful topics so as not to hurt the hearer’s feeling. We can find the theoretical foundation for this motivation in Leech’s Politeness Principle. Euphemisms just minimize the impoliteness and maximize the politeness in communication. The functions of euphemisms are in agreement with those of Politeness Principle too, as they both offer more benefit to the hearer and leave more cost to the speaker, with the purpose that both of the two sides will feel respected and have favorable impression of each other. As politeness is usually regarded as the manifestation of human civilization, euphemism is one of the most effective strategies to display politeness while modulating interpersonal relationship in human communication. 3.1 Substitution According to the definitions of euphemism and we know that a great number of English euphemisms serve as the substitutions for verbal taboos. The term taboo ( ta meaning “mark”, boo meaning “exceedingly”) of Polynesian origin denotes anything linguistic and nonlinguistic, which is prohibited or forbidden. Taboo refers to the situation in which a word or name can be used in a community only under special conditions, whether only by certain persons or only in certain circumstances. Just as violating a cultural taboo can be quite offensive, so is it with a verbal taboo in press conferences. The “word” has been and continues to be in most societies perceived as a powerful instrument that may evoke evil spirits, make bad things happen and instigate to violence and revolution and numerous other activities. While taboo of words occurs when a particular topic is considered valid for discussion, euphemistic expression or terms are required. So diplomatic euphemisms have a very seri