How did this conversation make you feel about Cynthia? Perhaps you thought she was funny. Perhaps you thought she was cynical. Perhaps you thought she was raw and truthful. 

How did this conversation make you feel about Emily? Maybe you thought she was impressionable. Maybe you thought she was overly polite. Maybe you thought she was completely ignorant. 

Pejorative languages wear many disguises depending on the person speaking those words and the person listening. Sometimes called slurs and sometimes called insults, these derogatory words have the ability to morph between the journey from mouth to ear. But seldom does it leave the story untainted, unbiased, or open for criticism. Pejorative languages are blunt blows of words that carry with them the weight of history. Of course, the past is interpreted by the listener and the impact can be weak or it can be excessive. 

 Pejorative language is not kind. Even when made in jest, it’s designed to give a negative impression of the subject. 

• The ghetto
• The wasteland
• The Nazi 
• The foreigners 
• The loner 

Pejorative language acts as a negative filter you can place over your text to criticize, disregard, or slander without going into details. One pejorative word, phrase, or clause is all you need to let the listener or reader know exactly how you feel. 

Calling a place a ghetto gives a certain impression of poverty. Calling a person a Nazi is so much more than just saying the person is bossy or authoritative. Calling a person a foreigner is to exhibit a general disregard for them, saying that they’re the other and are unworthy of being recognized. Calling a person a loner is to say that they are pitiful and pathetic. 

These loaded terms are heavy. They say a lot with little. Like a bullet, they are small but they could do a lot of damage. Depending on who’s aiming these words and whose these words are directed at, it can do more than leave a negative feeling. 

Emily sat there reading Cynthia’s message, influenced by her words. Cynthia became a victim of all the horror and oppression of the world around her. She had propagated Emily’s viewpoints. The city she visited was terrible. Her boss was unfairly demanding. The clients were unworthy. And her husband was inadequate. While this conversation, in the grand scheme of things, won’t affect Emily’s perspective on life. However, it will change her perspective for the convention city, her boss, the overseas clients, and Cynthia’s husband. 

There are no wonderful ghettos. There are no terrific Nazis. There is no genuine basis to call someone a foreigner when you are a foreigner. There is no way to speak of loners without attaching a sense of mental ineptitude. Each of these words lands somewhere upon a scale: some are deeply offensive and some merely ignorant. However, one cannot deny that they always leave you with a certain image. 

These images rest uniquely within each person. These words can trigger the intensity of these images. We all know derogatory terms for people of different races and we know they are not all equal in weight and firepower. Some barely make dents. Some are explosive. 

So when should you use pejorative words? Simple, when you want to insinuate negativity without any control. When your speech or writing requires an emphasis where a punctuation mark won’t do. When you need to sway a viewpoint in a negative direction. When you need to gain sympathy at all costs. 

How do you feel about pejorative language? Do you use it in your writing and speech? Let me know in the comments below. 

For more writing ideas and original stories, please sign up for my mailing list. You won’t receive emails from me often, but when you do, they’ll only include my proudest works.