Nuts and Bolts: periphrasis.

Periphrasis is calling a spade an agricultural digging implement.

It flouts the George Orwell's rule if it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out (which, it occurs to me, is a good example of what not to do: why not cut out every word you can?)

Anyway, periphrasis is an extra-words thing. The grammarians tend to think of it in terms of saying I did go rather than I went, and look longingly at Latin, which tends to construct sentences by changing the endings of words rather than bunging in a few extra ones: the four words palmam qui meruit ferat tend to be translated in English as he who has earned the palm, let him bear it...though quite honestly 
achievement should be rewarded gives you the same idea, so Latin doesn't always necessarily come out shorter.

In short, periphrasis is avoiding the shortest or most straightforward way of saying what you mean. It might be because of a natural pomposity: your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and...you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road says the thoroughly irritating Mr Micawber in David Copperfield. It might because of an embarrassed refinement I must pay a visit to the little girls' room; it might be reverence, as when someone Jewish says HaShem, 'the name' in conversation instead of uttering the true name of God.

But always, always, the question with periphrasis of this type is: what are they trying to hide?

The answer might tell you more than the words themselves.

Word To Use Today: periphrasis. Peri- means around, near, or about, or enclosing; phrazein is Greek for to declare.