--- title: Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes», a lesson of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Saying "no" or "you got it wrong" can hurt, so people dress failure up in softer clothes: a letter that says "we've de --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/) / Soft words for hard things: failure an… # Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes Lesson 34 of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school: 23 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/0/) — Saying "no" or "you got it wrong" can hurt, so people dress failure up in softer clothes: a letter that says "we've decided to go in a different direction" really means "you did not get the job". - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/1/) — Some phrases are kind, like "not quite there yet" for a drawing that still needs work; others are funny, like "I dropped a clanger" for an embarrassing mistake. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/2/) — Businesses and politicians spin failures: a company whose plan flopped calls its new plan "a pivot", and a minister who was caught out says "lessons have been learned". - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/3/) — Some phrases hide the truth completely: a person who "misremembered" may simply have said something false. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/4/) — "Dropped the ball" (mostly US) means made a mistake or failed to do what was needed. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/5/) — "Dropped a clanger" (UK slang) means made an embarrassing mistake. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/6/) — "A boo-boo" (humorous) means a small mistake. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/7/) — "An own goal" (UK) means a mistake that harms oneself. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/8/) — "Teething problems" (UK) means faults in something new. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/9/) — "A work in progress" means something not finished or not good yet. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/10/) — "Not quite there yet" means not good enough yet. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/11/) — "Back to the drawing board" means the plan has failed and we must start again. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/12/) — "That's one way of doing it" is a polite joke meaning you did it wrong. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/13/) — "An unforced error" (jargon, from tennis) means a mistake one made all by oneself. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/14/) — "A pivot" (US business jargon) means a change of plan after the first plan failed. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/15/) — "Lessons have been learned" (official) means we failed and we were blamed. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/16/) — "Unsuccessful", in a letter about a job or a place, means rejected. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/17/) — "We've decided to go in a different direction" means you have been rejected. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/18/) — "A misunderstanding" can hide a mistake or a quarrel. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/20/) — "A damp squib" (UK) means a disappointing failure, like a firework that does not go off. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/21/) — "Not ideal" (mostly UK) means bad. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/22/) — "Could have gone better" means went badly. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/34-failure-and-mistakes/23/) — "A mixed bag" means partly good and partly bad. - ← previous: [Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/33-failure-and-mistakes/) - next →: [Soft words for hard things: failure and mistakes and stupidity and madness](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/35-mistakes-and-stupidity/) - ↑ back to [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/)