Quotes & Sayings About Pejorative

I think it is very sad that 'sitcom' has become a pejorative term. — Penelope Keith

In 2003, at the time I made my "Old Europe" comment, the center of gravity in NATO and Europe had long since shifted to the East. With the former Warsaw Pact countries joining NATO, the alliance has a different mix today. Some people were sensitive about my comment because they thought it was a pejorative way of highlighting demographic realities. Apparently they felt it pointed a white light at a weakness in Europe - an aging population. Europe has come some distance since World War II in becoming Europe. — Donald Rumsfeld

Barry Jones once said that Australia is the only country where the word 'academic' is a pejorative. The academic sector has a vibrant and practical role to play in this complex world of ours. Higher education and research are worthy of your much closer attention. Yes, we can be and should be the clever country. Our progress can be within the highest ethical and moral framework. But this will only happen if we place appropriate emphasis on education, research and innovation within a truly international framework. — Gustav Nossal

For perhaps the first time in public, he used the neutral 'Africans' instead of the pejorative 'Kaffirs'. The change in language reflected a deeper change in his way of thinking about the world. When he first came to South Africa, Gandhi had pleaded for Indians to be distinguished from Africans, whom he then considered 'uncivilized'. Now, fifteen years later, he brought all races within a single ambit. They all had similar hopes, and would one day have the same rights. In the future, Indians and Africans would be absolutely free men, mingling with Boers and Britons in a nation where one's citizenship did not depend on the colour of one's skin. — Ramachandra Guha

I would not choose to live in any age but my own; advances in medicine alone, and the consequent survival of children with access to these benefits, should preclude any temptation to trade for the past. But we cannot understand history if we saddle the past with pejorative categories based on our bad habits for dividing continua into compartments of increasing worth towards the present. These errors apply to the vast paleontological history of life, as much as to the temporally trivial chronicle of human beings. I cringe every time I read that this failed business, or that defeated team, has become a dinosaur is succumbing to progress. Dinosaur should be a term of praise, not opprobrium. Dinosaurs reigned for more than 100 million years and died through no fault of their own; Homo sapiens is nowhere near a million years old, and has limited prospects, entirely self-imposed, for extended geological longevity. — Stephen Jay Gould

When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably) as a rhetorical device. Such cases do not function as speculations in the pejorative sense - as silly stories that provide insight into complex mechanisms - but rather as idealized illustrations to exemplify a difficult point of theory. (Other fields, like philosophy and the law, use such conjectural cases as a standard device. — Stephen Jay Gould

Knowledge without know-how is sterile. We use the word academic in a pejorative sense to identify this limitation. — Myron Tribus

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

You know, conservatism is not a bad thing. It's not a pejorative. — Michael Steele

Nor did it go unnoticed by the latest litter of Archimboldians, recent graduates, boys and girls, their doctorates tucked still warm under their arms, who planned, by any means necessary, to impose their particular readings of Archimboldi, like missionaries ready to instill faith in God, even if to do so meant signing a pact with the devil, for most were what you might call rationalists, not in the philosophical sense but in the pejorative literal sense, denoting people less interested in literature than in literary criticism, the one field, according to them - some of them, anyway - where revolution was still possible, and in some way they behaved not like youths but like nouveaux youths, in the sense that there are the rich and the nouveaux riches, all of them generally rational thinkers, let us repeat, although often incapable of telling their asses from their elbows, — Roberto Bolano

Even though there is neither much altruism nor equality in the world, there is almost universal endorsement of the values of altruism and equality - even, notoriously (and as Nietzsche seemed well aware), by those who are is worst enemies in practice. So Nietzsche's critique is that a culture in the grips of MPS [Morality in the Pejorative Sense], even without acting on MPS, poses the real obstacle to flourishing, because it teaches potential higher types to disvalue what would be most conductive to their creativity and value what is irrelevant or perhaps even hostile to it. — Brian Leiter

Interesting, isn't it, that even though more than two and a half decades have passed since the sexual revolution brought women a new measure of sexual freedom, there's still no word in the language that doesn't reek with pejorative connotation to describe a woman who has sex freely. Since language frames thought and sets its limits, this is not a trivial matter. For without a word that describes without condemning, it's hard to think about it neutrally as well. When we say the words 'promiscuous woman,' therefore, it's a statement about her character, not just her sexual behavior. — Lillian B. Rubin

At one point, 'feminist' became a pejorative term. How did that happen? If you're a feminist, you're basically saying you're a humanist. — Julianne Moore

Lotus-land as it appears in 'Free Will' is simply a metaphor for an idealized background, a 'land of milk and honey.' It is sometimes also used as a pejorative name for Los Angeles, though that was not in my mind when I wrote it. — Neil Peart

Tribalism isn't a bad thing. If you're a Facebook user, or Twitter user or Foursquare user or LinkedIn user, those are all tribes ... and they may even have sub-tribes. It's not pejorative, it's declarative. — Peter Guber

I have a very, very secret drive to become a dilettante, without the pejorative overtones or the obligation to produce myself. There's so much to examine, so much to contemplate. I have enormous enthusiasm when I start a new project but then there's the meetings and the counter-meetings, the rehearsals, the struggles. You have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get your dreams realised. — Peter Greenaway

We both are a pejorative - liberals. Spartak, I believe an active and powerful government is the only counterbalance against rapacious business interests, unprincipled individuals and groups often all too willing to deceive, poison, and ruin in the name of their own liberty. Without us, the powerful face no limits, no scrutiny, pay no price and never face justice. My life's work is to return integrity and influence to the public sphere. I wear barronial scorn with pride." He shook his head. "Of course most people think I'm a fool."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Washington
Speaking to his niece and then Spartak Jones in a restaurant named after author Ayn Rand, San Francisco, in the year 2115
The Chronicles of Spartak - Rising Son, a novel — Steven A. Coulter

Space opera, as every reader doubtless knows, is a pejorative term often applied to a story that has an element of adventure. Over the decades, brilliant and talented new writers appear, receiving great acclaim, and each and every one of them can be expected to write at least one article stating flatly that the day of space opera is over and done, thank goodness, and that henceforth these crude tales of interplanetary nonsense will be replaced by whatever type of story that writer happens to favor - closet dramas, psychological dramas, sex dramas, etc., but by God important dramas, containing nothing but Big Thinks. Ten years late, the writer in question may or may not still be around, but the space opera can be found right where it always was, sturdily driving its dark trade in heroes. — Leigh Brackett

Studies have shown that the terms girl and lady have pejorative connotations: They conjure images of someone weaker and lazier; someone more nervous, afraid, dependent, immature, and inconsiderate; someone less sexy, intelligent, and certainly less charismatic than 'woman.' Indeed, the term woman is overwhelmingly interpreted as more favorable and is most often used to describe adult females who deserve respect. — Pat Heim

Whereas fanatic is usually a pejorative word, a Fan is someone who has roots somewhere. — Simon Kuper

A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adective 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 hightest 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

But the cinephile is ... a neurotic! (That's not a pejorative term.) The Bronte sisters were neurotic, and it's because they were neurotic that they read all those books and became writers. The famous French advertising slogan that says, "When you love life, you go to the movies," it's false! It's exactly the opposite: when you don't love life, or when life doesn't give you satisfaction, you go to the movies. — Francois Truffaut

(In reference to swingers) In the meantime, if you wish to declare yourself polyamorous, get used to the fact that the confusion is gong to remain as a pejorative. Sure, clear up the misunderstanding as much as you can, but don't put too much effort into setting yourself up as a "good", responsible, community-oriented polyamorist by contrasting yourself to the "bad" swingers - they may not be your siblings, but they're definitely your cousins. — Anthony D. Ravenscroft

When did "sentimental" become a pejorative barb? I do not at all share the notion that a piece of music, or a poem, or a film that bypasses the brain and aims straight for the heart ... should automatically be heaped with scorn. I think it is symptomatic of a sad and dangerous impoverishment of spirit. — Bill Richardson

... the very appearance of the word 'oriental' as a serious geographic or cultural term triggers alarm bells for any American academic. The late Edward Said's Orientalism argued that the word 'oriental' is a fundamentally pejorative term for certain parts of the non-Western world, not only indicating that they are inferior but also justifying Western colonization or domination of them. — Peter A. Lorge

It is little wonder then that the term "religious" is often a pejorative one indicating an escapist, self-righteous, other-worldly or perhaps superstitious stance toward life. Nor should this come as any surprise, in light of all we have been saying of the pervasiveness of the false self. Since religion deals with the ultimate realities of life, it is understandable that religion would draw out the ultimate in the false self's basic disorientation and blindness. The false self can have but false gods, all of which in the end turn out to be but reflections of the false self as it worships itself and sets itself up as the reason for its own existence. — James Finley

Labs, too, can become machines. In science, it is more often a pejorative description than a complimentary one: an efficient, thrumming, technically accomplished laboratory is like a robot orchestra that produces perfectly pitched tunes but no music. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Misogyny is simply a symptom of how stupid and self-serving we all are. As is racism. As is any outlook that lumps people into pejorative categories (like 'neckbeards'), that urges or insinuates hatred of people based on simplistic identifications. — R. Scott Bakker

The term 'income inequality' is a bit misleading because it suggests in a somewhat pejorative way that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor, — Edward Lazear

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 Martin

Self-pity is just sadness, I think, in the pejorative. — Renata Adler

Living in Brooklyn it's a very fend-for-yourself place. Maybe it's made me a little bit harsh but I don't consider that to be pejorative. — Fernando Torres

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

Gayness is built into Batman. I'm not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There's just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he's intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay. — Grant Morrison

The days of using my name as a pejorative are now over. The right wing turned me into an accidental spokesperson for the liberal, majority agenda. — Michael Moore

To us, the argument for material well-being might seem uncontroversial. But in the eighteenth century, material prosperity was frequently condemned as "luxury" by religious and civic moralists. It was not a morally neutral word but a pejorative one, connoting not comfort but excess, the possession of nonnecessities. The notion of luxury was intricately connected with the existence of a recognized social hierarchy: what was necessary for those of high status was regarded as excessive for those of low status. Luxury meant the enjoyment of material goods not appropriate to one's station in life. Critics of luxury saw it as confounding social ranks. P. 40 — Jerry Z. Muller

The rational approach start from the idea that everything is explainable and that mystery is in some sense the enemy. This means that it prefers pejorative, and even wrong, answers to admitting its own lack of understanding. — Jeremy Narby

It is deeply pejorative to call someone a 'climate change denier.' This is because it is a phrase designedly reminiscent of the idea of 'Holocaust Denial.' — Richard D. North

The regional tags are often pejorative and dismissive. Don't think of place-bound stories, in other words, but of stories with a strong sense of place. — John Dufresne

Just like every show has a tone, every show has different people on it playing different games. I don't say 'game' in a pejorative sense, I just mean, these are different stories that we tell ourselves when we go to work. — David Duchovny

I'm not conniving - that has a pejorative context. I'm not sitting in back rooms making deals. That's not my style. — Bess Myerson

I like to remind people what radical means
'at the root of things.' It shouldn't be considered a pejorative. There isn't a great name out of history you can pick who wasn't 'radical. — Sonia Johnson

I don't like the word 'calculated' because it sounds pejorative. Intentional. Intentional is better, I think. Wild in passion and intentional in expression. — Jane Fonda

Apparently, despite my awareness of its pejorative connotation, procrastinating is something I fall victim to quite frequently. I'm not proud of it; I'm just being honest. — Rachel Nichols

The thing with that word "establishment" is a four-letter word in the 2016 politics, so toxic, so pejorative that pretty much no one wants to be associated with it. — Chris Hayes

So, the word wild here is not used in its modern pejorative sense, meaning out of control, but in its original sense, which means to live a natural life, one in which the criatura, creature, has innate integrity and healthy boundaries. These words, wild and woman, cause women to remember who they are and what they are about. They create a metaphor to describe the force which funds all females. They personify a force that women cannot live without. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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

Selfish hedonism is not a pejorative. It is a description - an exactly accurate description of what is involved in homosexual relations. — Alan Keyes