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This article was nominated for deletion on 9 July 2015. The result of the discussion was keep.

On 25 January 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved to Slur. The result of the discussion was not moved.

Spade, eh?[edit]

I'm not sure if it's intentional, but when the article mentions "calling a spade a spade", it reminded me that someone once told me 'spade' was a pejorative term for a black person! Though I fear this will start us off on the euphemism treadmill again.

A question[edit]

Some individuals (e.g. User:FWBOarticle) appear (from discourse) to believe that words may be inherently pejorative. I genuinely wonder if there are any philosophical discussions regarding such ideas? (20040302 00:48, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC))

"Pejorative" vs "disparaging"[edit]

From the article:

Although pejorative means the same thing as disparaging, the latter term may be applied to a look or gesture as well as to words and phrases.

But the article linked to (as should be obvious from its title) does not discuss its application to a look or gesture. Brianjd 10:19, 2004 Dec 27 (UTC)

Bites more than it chews[edit]

This article starts the huge subject of taking away the power of pejorative words, but doesn't really explain any of the process or the rationale. I think Dr. Judith Butler says some crazy stuff on it, though I might be mixed up. It would be awesome if someone (maybe me, later,) gave more support.

Also, the article could use something on the use of pejoritives by groups against each other (I linked here from terrorist, for example).

Transwiki[edit]

I would propose that this article be transwikied to wictionary. Not quite sure how to go about doing that, but it sounds like a good idea.

Overhaul[edit]

This article really needs an overhaul. Slurs, in the historic and cultural sense as they are used to refer to different racial, ethnic, or religious groups, are a very important part of the way humans interact with others (for the worse) and deserves a somewhat lengthy wiki article that dives into the history of their usage and how they affect society. As it stands, slur just redirects to pejorative, which does not have the same connotations, and this article simply focuses on linguistics and semantic drift. I agree with the user above that pejorative should be a dictionary article. Maybe we should consider renaming this to Slur and overhauling all the content? Would be happy to help but since I'm sort of new, I would love to get some input before I got the ball rolling. Aurangzebra (talk) 05:09, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 25 January 2024[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Bensci54 (talk) 11:57, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pejorative → Slur – Reasoning detailed above but I'll rehash it here: slurs are a key part of our social fabric and have played a notable role in interracial, interethnic, and inter-religious dynamics. However, the term slur (in this usage) redirects to pejorative which does not have the same connotations. We either need to rename the article or create a separate one for slur but I lean towards renaming because pejorative as a stand-alone term lacks notability in my opinion; it should be a dictionary entry. We can always port over the current content to a page called Slur since slur is simply a synonym of pejorative but we cannot do it the other way around (add historical/social context about slurs to a page called Pejorative) because pejorative does not connote the same things slur does. Aurangzebra (talk) 07:04, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this controversial or not (I don't think it is?). I'll give this a week or two and if I don't hear any complaints, I may just rename it myself. Aurangzebra (talk) 07:09, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. "Slur" is also a verb (indistinct speech, etc.). And as a noun, a slur can also be just insinuated ("slur on my reputation"). "Pejorative" is clearer. Walrasiad (talk) 11:27, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Walrasiad: Would you be OK with a rename to 'Slur (pejorative)'? Or a split into two articles: slur and pejorative? I am aware that slur has other definitions but those are just dictionary definitions and not something someone would be confused at not finding on Wikipedia, much in the same way that no one who looks up rose on Wikipedia expects to find a Wikipedia article talking about getting up in past tense. My main point here is that slurs and their history and social context certainly deserve a Wikipedia article but it doesn't make sense to put that content in an article called 'pejorative' since that is primarily a linguistic term that can refer to anything derogatory. Aurangzebra (talk) 00:26, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think slurs and pejoratives are different, and there should be two articles. Pejoration can be almost anything negatively loaded, and I'm not sure that silly or any of the WC terms mentioned in the article are usually considered slurs? Also, there are languages with pejorative morphology which fits into an article on pejorative forms but would not really fit in an article on "slurs", and more text on pejorative morphology would probably make it notable. I think it can be solved as a move (without leaving a redirect?); at least the intro would fit just as well (or even better) in an article on slurs, and it would be fine to have a section on pejoration. But could also be done as a split? There's a question about what to do with the current disambigution, but I don't think that's an argument against change. "Pejorative" is broader, so I wouldn't call it clearer. --//Replayful (talk | contribs) 11:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Replayful: Good points and makes sense. I am also happy to create a brand new article and split off slur into its own thing. I thought a rename would be the easiest path forward since the content currently in the article could easily fit under an article entitled Slur but it seems like there is contention on this. I'll wait for Walrasiad's input above and then I'll probably get the ball rolling on a draft. Seems like quite a notable oversight that we don't have a page for the social context behind slurs especially when there is so much material available for us in the Further Reading section which is currently going unused because it wouldn't fit in with the linguistic theme of the rest of the article. Aurangzebra (talk) 00:35, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Because the whole thing could be merged into the article Insult which has the more in-depth coverage you suggest. This and slur would be a WP:content fork of insult. You can add a subsection for "slur" and one for "pejorative" to the article insult to explain the difference between the two. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 04:10, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.