Pejorative

Chileans often pride themselves on being "the English of South America" or "the Switzerland of South America", yet in the football stadiums and fanzines their Bolivian and Peruvian call them "Mapochos", a pejorative corruption of Mapuches.

Pejorative, also terms of abuse, disparagement, or derogatory, is a word or grammatical form of expression that expresses contempt, criticism, hostility, disregard and/or disrespect.

CONTENT : A - F , G - L , M - R , S - Z , See also , External links

Quotes

Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author

A - F

• Say what you mean, and mean what you say because the words that you choose matter. When you use 'gay' in a pejorative way, the effect that it has on the gay kid in the room or the kid with gay relatives is that being gay is less than or inferior to. [BASED]
  • Ash Beckham in: LGBT Advocate Ash Beckham Takes Back The Word 'Gay,' Calls For Societal Change (VIDEO), The Huffington Post, 5 March 2013

• Yellow journalism is the sneering pejorative perhaps most frequently associated with misconduct in news gathering. Indeed, for more than 100 years, it has served as a derisive shorthand for denouncing journalists and their misdeeds, real and imagined. It is an evocative term that has been diffused internationally, in contexts as Greece and Nigeria, as Israel and India. The precise origins of the phrase, however, long been murky, and its derivation has been a source of periodic dispute among a scholars.
  • W. Joseph Campbell in: Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1 January 2001, p. 25

• Operation Wetback used in 1954 is the code name derived from the derogatory term wetback, or mojado, which literally translated means "wet." The pejorative word mojado is used to describe an individual who crosses the border illegally, because often the crossing entails physically getting across the Rio Grande River, which means the individual emerges on the other side wet.
  • Cordelia Candelaria et al., in: Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture, Volume 2, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, p. 602

• We should be honest about our sources, even if we can't name them. The New York Times policy on pejorative quotes is worth bearing in mind: The vivid language of direct quotation confers an unfair advantage on a speaker or writer who hides behind the newspaper, and turns of phrase are valueless to a reader who cannot assess the source.
  • Editorial code in: Stephen Pritchard The readers' editor on… anonymous sources When is a spokesman a 'spad' - and how is the reader to know the difference?, Stephen Pritchard, The Observer, Sunday 3 November 2013

• There may be exceptional circumstances when anonymous pejorative quotes paraphrase anonymous pejorative quotes
  • Editorial code in: Stephen Pritchard " The readers' editor on… anonymous sources When is a spokesman a 'spad' - and how is the reader to know the difference?"

• Group-specific policy focusing on special services and resources for disability category members logically follows from corporeal medical-diagnostic definitions of disability. In opposition, however, to what was perceived as a pejorative, the distal view of disability indicts social, cultural, and other environmental influences as disabling factors regardless of one’s body.
  • Ira C. Colby et al., in: Connecting Social Welfare Policy to Fields of Practice , John Wiley & Sons, 27 December 2012, p. 123

Whistle Blowers on Wall Street - The employee will never denounce his superiors if society continues to treat him as a whistle-blower (pejorative connotation in the business world), a tattletale or sneak (pejorative connotation at school), an informer (pejorative connotation from the German occupation), a stool pigeon (pejorative connotation in the Soviet Union), or a squealer (pejorative connotation from the underworld). - Jacques Cory

...the racial slur nigger is explosively derogatory, enough so that just hearing it mentioned can leave one feeling as if they have been made complicit in a morally atrocious act... -Adam M. Croom

There seems to be justification for assuming that Theophrastus employed the term in a pejorative sense of "pedant", but we should adhere to the positive meaning “scholastic”. -W. Fortenbaugh

• The employee will never denounce his superiors if society continues to treat him as a whistle-blower (pejorative connotation in the business world), a tattletale or sneak (pejorative connotation at school), an informer (pejorative connotation from the German occupation), a stool pigeon (pejorative connotation in the Soviet Union), or a squealer (pejorative connotation from the underworld).
  • Jacques Cory in: Activist Business Ethics, Springer Science & Business Media, 29-Sep-2004 , p. 138

• Slurs possess interesting linguistic properties and so have recently attracted the attention of linguists and philosophers of language. For instance the racial slur nigger is explosively derogatory, enough so that just hearing it mentioned can leave one feeling as if they have been made complicit in a morally atrocious act... Although I have considered not even mentioning such a derogatory term as nigger in the first place, I chose it because on the one hand there is a substantive literature on the term upon which to draw to aid in the analysis of slurs in general, and on the other hand, this term highlights the fact that slurs possess a forcefully potent affective component that is clearly a key aspect to their employment.
  • Adam M. Croom in: Slurs, ScienceDirect

• While terms such as 'soft news', 'dumbing down', 'tabloidisation' or 'commercialisation' are often pejoratively invoked to describe an approach or style of journalism, it is less clear what these values actually are...
  • Stephen Cushion in: Television Journalism, SAGE, 10 November 2011, p. 23

• Most students had heard pejorative references to patients, but few thought the practice useful. Monitoring such usage may help identify individual or institutional problems and lead to better management strategies for certain subgroups of patients.
  • Peter E. Dans in Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, Volume 15, Baylor Research Foundation, 2002, p. 26

• As Germany prepares for national elections in September, Merkel has dropped the language of freedom entirely. Instead, she talks about solidarity, justice and security. It is as if freedom had become a pejorative term, especially in the context of the global financial crisis.
  • Judy Dempsey in Balancing Freedom and the Role of the State in Germany,The New York Times, 27 May 2009

• We reach the second half of the twentieth century still tumbling with pros and cons of using the notion of primitive. Some consider it to be quite acceptable, together with barbarism, pagan, and savage, because nothing pejorative is found in their ]]etymological]] origins: Primitive, pagan, and savage, are, then, perfectly respectable words. But primate is the most widely disseminated, in the most recognizable forms, in major languages and has, even today, the least pejorative associations, signifying merely a prior state of affairs, a relative sense of origins.
  • Stanley Diamond (1981), "In Search of the Primitive, a Critique of Civilization" p. 15 quoted in" Alcida Rita Ramos Indigenism: Ethnic Politics in Brazil, Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1998, p. 15

• Worse, the term tends to be pejorative and is certainly murky. It refers most properly these days to the popular, Hindi-language, song-and-dance extravaganzas produced by studios based in Mumbai.
  • The Economist in: The Economist, Volume 381, Economist Newspaper Limited, 2006

• There seems to be justification for assuming that Theophrastus employed the term in a pejorative sense of "pedant", but we should adhere to the positive meaning “scholastic”.
  • W. Fortenbaugh in: Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang Haase Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt (ANRW): Rise and Decline of the Roman World, Teil II: Principat, Walter de Gruyter, 1 June 1992, p. 3876

G - L

... Being hard to distinguish amongst true flax until it flowered it was awarded a pejorative affiliation with toads.

That reference to Holy Rollers — a possibly pejorative term that certainly won't endear him to the religious right — is one reason O’Reilly can be such a fascinating figure to some gay activists.

Fan is a widely admired figure in Britain, at least among men. Whereas fanatic is usually a pejorative word, a Fan is someone who has roots somewhere. -Simon Kuper.

• Common toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) is a curiously shaped flower that gives rise to the name 'cod's head' in Norwegian, and in dialect nomenclature it has been likened to a variety of other animals' mouths: dog, rabbit, mouse, lion, monkey and so on. Its colouration accounts for the alternative English name of butter-and-eggs; the eggyolk-orange part gets darker as it matures. The plant can become very invasive and is regarded as a weed. Being hard to distinguish amongst true flax until it flowered it was awarded a pejorative affiliation with toads.
  • Geograph in: SM9637 : Common toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), geograph.org

• That reference to Holy Rollers — a possibly pejorative term that certainly won't endear him to the religious right — is one reason O’Reilly can be such a fascinating figure to some gay activists.
  • Michael Giltz in: The Advocate, monthly newsmagazine No. 872, Here Publishing, 17 September 2002, p. 34

• And while he's been described by what has become a pejorative for quarterbacks - "game manager" - he's really done more than that.
  • Dave Goldberg in: Obscure players win for Pats, USA Today, 9 January 2008

• Fan is a widely admired figure in Britain, atleast among men. Whereas fanatic is usually a pejorative word, a Fan is someone who has roots somewhere.
  • Simon Kuper in: Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Spain, Germany, and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, Australia, TurkeyÑand Even IraqÑAre Destined to Become the Kings of the WorldÕs Most Popular Sport, Nation Books, 1 May 2012 , p. 235

• We understand the inappropriateness of these pejorative quotes; nonetheless, although distasteful, we believe that the reactions of these unfortunate spirits interned in sanatorium-like or purgatorial regions must appear in the present account so that we may not evade the truth.
  • Andre Luiz in: And life goes on..., EDICEI of America, p. 110

M - R

The term 'genre' eventually becomes pejorative because you're referring to something that's so codified and ritualised that it ceases to have the power and meaning it had when it first started. - Christopher Nolan.

They called him mountebank and sorcerer, fakir in a pejorative sense of the Petro Asson, and other names associated with cheap charlatans who would raise the dead for 15 dollars and change... - Ishmael Reed.

• The pejorative term 'political correctness' was adapted to express disapproval of the enlargement of etiquette to cover all people, in spite of this being a principle to which all Americans claim to subscribe.
  • Judith S. Marin in: Christopher Caldwell Behaving Ourselves, The New York Times, 8 December 2012

• Classification is now a pejorative statement. You know, these classifiers look like “dumb fools.” I’m a classifier. But I’d like to use a word that includes more than what people consider is encompassed by classification. It is more than that, and it’s something which can be called phenomenology.
  • William Wilson Morgan in: Oral History Transcript — Dr. William Wilson Morgan, The Niels Bohr Library & Archives

• The term 'genre' eventually becomes pejorative because you're referring to something that's so codified and ritualised that it ceases to have the power and meaning it had when it first started.
  • Christopher Nolan in: Geoff Andrew Interviews: Christopher Nolan, The Guardian, 27 August 2002

• I just love bossy women. I could be around them all day. To me, bossy is not a pejorative term at all. It means somebody’s passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn't mind leading.
  • Amy Poehler in: Amy Poehler And Tina Fey Taught Us Everything We Know About Being A Woman, Huffington Post, 15 October 2013

• From the outer space perspective, there is no sideways force (that is, perpendicular to the plane of swing) deflecting the sway of the pendulum. That is why the somewhat pejorative term "fictitious" is attached to this force.
  • David Politzer in: What is a "fictitious force"?, Scientific American, 9 July 2007

• Chileans often pride themselves on being "the English of South America" or "the Switzerland of South America", yet in the football stadiums and fanzines their Bolivian and Peruvian call them "Mapochos", a pejorative corruption of Mapuches.
  • Leslie Ray in: Language of the Land: The Mapuche in Argentina and Chile, IWGIA, 2007, p. 245

• They called him mountebank and sorcerer, fakir in a pejorative sense of the Petro Asson, and other names associated with cheap charlatans who would raise the dead for 15 dollars and change.
  • Ishmael Reed in: Mumbo Jumbo, Simon and Schuster, 11 June 1996, p. 186

S - Z

• Lately the word progress has taken on a pejorative meaning, implying superiority over those who “have not progressed as far,” namely, they have not adopted the values or the standard of living defined by the Industrial West, because they are either not able or not willing to encourage the development of science and technology. I do not mean progress to have this pejorative sense.
  • Michael Shermer in: Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, Macmillan, 1 September 2002, p. 42

Scholars who study cults (or, as many prefer to call them by the less pejorative term, “New Religious Movements”) explain that there is no simple answer to the question “Who joins cults?” The only consistent variable seems to be age—young people are likely to join the cults than older people.

The word that came to denote this set of characteristics in parliamentary propaganda was, of course, "cavalier" and it is … By the early seventeenth century, it had acquired pejorative connotations — "a poor beggerly knight that hath nothing but his sword and cloak and a knight of drawen sword that an excellent whoremonger or a notable wincher.” - Robert Wilcher.

• Scholars who study cults (or, as many prefer to call them by the less pejorative term, “New Religious Movements”) explain that there is no simple answer to the question “Who joins cults?” The only consistent variable seems to be age—young .people are likely to join the cults than older people.
  • Michael Shermer in: Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time, Macmillan, 1 September 2002, p. 295

• What is odd is how fairly quickly the concept of geek has moved from pejorative to almost complimentary.
  • Thesaurus in: Synonyms, thesaurus.com

• Knowledge without know-how is sterile. We use the word 'academic' in a pejorative sense to identify this limitation.
  • Myron Tribus quoted in Tommy Boone Professionalization of Exercise Physiologyonline Vol 6 No 9, Analyzing the Students' Needs, asep.org, September 2003

• A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume.
  • Gore Vidal in: Screening History, Harvard University Press, 1 March 1994, p. 24

• The word that came to denote this set of characteristics in parliamentary propaganda was, of course, "cavalier" and it is … By the early seventeenth century, it had acquired pejorative connotations — "a poor beggerly knight that hath nothing but his sword and cloak and a knight of drawen sword that an excellent whoremonger or a notable wincher.”
  • Robert Wilcher in: The Discontented Cavalier: The Work of Sir John Suckling in Its Social, Religious, Political, and Literary Contexts, Associated University Presse, 2007l;