r/words • u/Kittyhawk4321 • 4d ago

I just realized I’ve been misreading pejorative my entire life

I so sure it was spelled with an R, like perjorative, I even said it that way, I can’t believe I’m only finding this out now. I can already tell it’s going to take an annoyingly long time to memorize it the correct way. Sometimes I’m like “oh I don’t really have dyslexia, I’m a writer and I love reading” and then fucking pejorative comes to punch me in the face.

56 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

33

u/nikukuikuniniiku 4d ago

It's swapped with the R people drop from turmeric.

3

u/MistakeIndividual690 3d ago

I believe tumeric is a valid (or obsolete) alternative spelling

6

u/Obadiah702 3d ago

And February.

1

u/nikukuikuniniiku 3d ago

That eloped with the L from solder.

3

u/TheJivvi 2d ago

Most of the world still pronounces that. The silent L is a regionalism.

3

u/nikukuikuniniiku 2d ago

Middle English was soudure, so technically it's the silent L variant that "still" retains its pronunciation. But yeah, it's widespread in North American English, and maybe some parts of UK and Ireland.

https://languagehat.com/solder/

1

u/Rocky-bar 3d ago

L from solder hasn't eloped! Not where I live, anyway.

1

u/nikukuikuniniiku 3d ago edited 3d ago

That's because it eloped from America to Britain.

(Seriously: https://youglish.com/pronounce/solder/english/us)

2

u/ReadySetAdapt 3d ago

In the Southeastern US: winder (window)
peor (pure) and many more

3

u/Symptom_Complex_0769 3d ago

Huh? I am pure Southeastern US and do not remotely speak that way. Stereotype much?

2

u/ReadySetAdapt 3d ago

South Central Georgia native here. And I don’t naturally speak that way either. But in the places between interstates and far from main state highways, you’ll find “those who speak in alters” and they are often some of the best people you’ll ever meet.

1

u/EnIrregularVerbs 1d ago

At least pure had an r to begin with.

2

u/JazzFan1998 3d ago

Good Idear!

21

u/Zakluor 4d ago

I did the same thing for years with perseverance. I thought it was perserverence.

I have no idea where I got the misspelling from, but I was sure of it until I saw the spelling on the Mara Rover. I knew there was no way they'd misspell it on such a high-profile project.

14

u/SGTingles 3d ago

until I saw the spelling on the Mara Rover. I knew there was no way they'd misspell it

That's the most glorious bit of comic timing I've seen on a typo in a while 😜

6

u/Zakluor 3d ago

Damnit!

4

u/SGTingles 3d ago

Sorry, had to be done 😆

4

u/Zakluor 3d ago

Eh, it's a fair cop, and good for a laugh. I'm just marveling at the number or typos I caught before posting, and somehow let that one slip by me. My proofreading skills are fading, and fast.

4

u/SGTingles 3d ago

Hehe, we've all been there! It's where autocorrect lets perfectly cromulent words through that nevertheless don't belong, is the problem.

I only just clocked another reply I wrote earlier that should've said "you're talking" but predictive text rendered as "your taking", which thus made no sense whatsoever yet which my phone thought was just dandy. I didn't catch it until just now because I'd simply assumed it said what I expected it to say...

7

u/MistakeIndividual690 3d ago

Are you me? This exact thing happened to me, down to figuring it out with the Mars Rover.

7

u/Zakluor 3d ago

At least you spelled Mars right.

3

u/TheJivvi 3d ago

Am I going to Mass?

2

u/Zakluor 3d ago

Now I want a toaster. And it had better be free!

18

u/Unterraformable 3d ago

I think "perjorative" is when you tell a lie in court. :-)

5

u/Dapper-Condition6041 3d ago

perjurative?

1

u/Unterraformable 3d ago

Yes, you got the joke.

6

u/Alarmed-Secretary207 4d ago

Wait until you find out about mascarpone.

5

u/greyshem 3d ago

What the shit!? It doesn't have an extra 'r'?

flips through dictionary

What the SHIT! It DOESN'T! Call the dimension cops, someone rewrote reality again.

5

u/BroadSatisfaction825 4d ago

the phantom r in pejorative feels surprisingly convincing to many readers.

6

u/Kittyhawk4321 4d ago

I always (based on the phantom r) assumed it shared a root with perjury, and that pejorative had at some point had a contextual meaning more similar to libel

1

u/SGTingles 3d ago

Yes I think I based the same misapprehension on the same logic (perjury > 'perjorative') for quite some time when I was younger – certainly into my 20s. You're not alone!

1

u/EnIrregularVerbs 1d ago

“Pejorative” does not have the phantom r because it is from Latin peior (comparative of malus, which means “bad”). So it is related to Spanish peor, French pire, and Italian peggiore.

3

u/hew14375 3d ago

Thank you for pointing this out. I also have thought it was ‘per…’ rather than ‘pe…’. Very odd that I have missed that

5

u/Nearby-Wolverine-189 3d ago

If it helps you think about it this way, it comes from Latin “peior” (worse), with the “i” becoming a “j.” For my brain, that little tag helps the English word make sense.

7

u/GaymerGirl42014 4d ago

This makes me uncomfortable. Please stop. Ignorance was bliss.

5

u/GaymerGirl42014 4d ago

People cannot take a joke, but it is weirdly uncomfortable to learn there are fewer R's out there than my mind led be to believe. It makes me wonder what other words have a Mandela type effect

5

u/TheHesperus 3d ago

You mean the Marnderlar effect?

1

u/Dapper-Condition6041 3d ago

I see what you did there.

3

u/nottodaymonkey 3d ago

It’s the most menacing letter per Dwight Schrute

2

u/Lawrence_Eataburger 4d ago

And now I have just realized it.

2

u/amby-jane 1d ago

Prerogative has entered the chat.

3

u/voicelessneighbour60 4d ago

oh man i did the exact same thing with "prerogative" for years, the phantom R is real. brain just slides it in there like it belongs and you dont even question it til someone gives you a weird look. pejorative still looks wrong to me every time i see it written out

3

u/No_Parking_4195 3d ago

Prerogative does have an R between the P and the E.

1

u/glitterguavatree 3d ago

prerogative should have double R. 3 Rs total. prerrogative

1

u/ChrisB-oz 3d ago

Pejorative used to be pronounced with the stress on the “pe”, something like PEEd-juh-ruh-tive, and the new pronunciation with the stress on the “jor” part makes it sound like it starts “per-“.

1

u/dunderthrowaway3 3d ago

When I was younger I thought narrator was narrarator. I said it this way until my mid twenties. Nobody ever corrected me.

1

u/Sure_Jan_Sure 3d ago

Took me a while to catch on to that as well.

1

u/Dapper-Condition6041 3d ago

It’s like that extra R was not hidden there all this time…

1

u/Manky_Fork 1d ago

The other tricky one, which I had drummed in by my grandfather when I was young, was "prerogative" (perogative)

0

u/Leather_Command_7553 3d ago

Me too.

Great minds think alike.

2

u/Playmaker-20 13h ago

That can happen sometimes. Just remember the word is pronounced “Puh-jor-rah-tive.”