A pejorative, slur, or derogatory term is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a term is regarded as pejorative in some social or ethnic groups but not in others, or may be originally pejorative but later adopt a non-pejorative sense (or vice versa) in some or all contexts.
Etymology
The word pejorative is derived from a Late Latin past participle stem of peiorare, meaning "to make worse", from peior "worse".
Pejoration and melioration
In historical linguistics, the process of an inoffensive word becoming pejorative is a form of semantic drift known as pejoration. An example of pejoration is the shift in meaning of the word silly from meaning that a person was happy and fortunate to meaning that they are foolish and unsophisticated. The process of pejoration can repeat itself around a single concept, leaping from word to word in a phenomenon known as the euphemism treadmill, for example as in the successive pejoration of the terms bog-house, privy-house, latrine, water closet, toilet, bathroom and restroom (US English).
When a term begins as pejorative and eventually is adopted in a non-pejorative sense, this is called melioration or amelioration. One example is the shift in meaning of the word nice from meaning a person was foolish to meaning that a person is pleasant. When performed deliberately, it is described as reclamation or reappropriation. An example of a word that has been reclaimed by portions of the community that it targets is queer, which began being re-appropriated as a positive descriptor in the early 1990s by activist groups. However, due to its history and – in some regions – continued use as a pejorative, there remain LGBT individuals who are uncomfortable with having this term applied to them. The "-a" use of the n-word by black americans is often viewed as another act of reclamation, though much like queer in the LGBT movement, there exist a vocal subsect of black people that object to the use of the n-word under any circumstances.
See also
Further reading
- Croom, Adam M. (2011). "Slurs". Language Sciences. 33 (3): 343–358. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2010.11.005.
- Croom, Adam M. (2014). "Remarks on 'The Semantics of Racial Slurs'". Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations. Vol. 13, no. 1. pp. 11–32.
- Croom, Adam M. (January 2014). "The Semantics of Slurs: A Refutation of Pure Expressivism". Language Sciences. 41, Part B: 227–242. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2013.07.003.
- Henderson, Anita (Spring 2003). "What's in a Slur?". American Speech. Vol. 78, no. 1. Project MUSE. pp. 52–74.
External links
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Media related to Pejoratives at Wikimedia Commons - "Pejorative Language". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
