In 1850, a polite person would ask where the "lavatory" was. By 1900, the word was too crude, and people asked for the "toilet". By 1950, the toilet had become the "restroom" in America and the "loo" in Britain, and today a nervous guest asks for the "bathroom", even if nobody intends to bathe. Each of these words was invented to avoid embarrassment. Each, in time, became embarrassing.
This is the euphemism treadmill. A society wants a gentle word for something unpleasant, so it invents one. For a while the new word is clean. But the unpleasantness belongs to the thing, not to the word, and sooner or later the old feeling attaches itself to the new label. Then we need another. A "layoff" becomes "downsizing", then "rightsizing", then "restructuring". The employee, who is the person who matters, receives exactly the same letter.
Language, it seems, is a poor cleaning product. A new word can make a conversation more comfortable, but it cannot change what the conversation is about. When a hospital talks about "adverse events", nobody is comforted; the family only hears the delay.
Yet it would be too easy to ridicule all euphemism. Some changes are a genuine progress. When a community stops using a word because it was invented to hurt, the new term may reflect a real change in respect. The treadmill is not simply an empty machine; sometimes it moves a little forward.
The sensible position is a modest one. We should change the word when the word is the problem, and change the thing when the thing is. The danger lies in confusing the two, and in believing that a reform has been achieved because the vocabulary has improved. A better word is a promise. It is not, by itself, the payment.
Fiction note: All people, places and events in this text are fictional.