pejorative
ゴールデングローブ賞を受賞したタランティーノ監督が，式場で"ghetto"と発言したことが批判されております。記事では，この言葉がなぜ侮辱的な意味で用いられるようになったのかを調べております。記事の解説によると，最初に"ghetto"という言葉が使われたのは1611年で，その意味は"a quarter in a city, chiefly in Italy, to which the Jews were restricted"というものです。他にも"A quarter in a city, esp. thickly populated slum area, inhabited by a minority group or groups, usually as a result of economic or social pressures"という考えもあります。要するに，貧困層や社会的圧力を受けている人々が暮らす地区をさしていたようです。
Mario Small教授によると，20世紀の米国では，"predominantly African American neighbourhoods - especially the densely populated areas that resulted from the mass migration of American blacks from southern states to northern cities "という意味で用いられるようになりました。さらに，言語学者のDavid Brown教授によると，1960年代から1970年代には"it takes on a very pejorative sense to do with race, poverty, social-economic status, and neighbourhoods that are run-down"という意味で使われていたようです。このような変遷を経て"ghetto"が，人種，貧困，経済状況に関しての軽蔑表現として用いられ始めたようです。
記事の中で気になった単語は"pejorative"です。『Wisdom英和辞典第三版』（三省堂）には「｟かたく｠軽蔑的な(言葉[表現])」などという意味がありました。Oxford Dictionaries.comには"Expressing contempt or disapproval"と定義されております。Oxford Dictionaries.comで語源を調べるとフランス語の"péjoratif"に由来することがわかりました。（Ume）
Is the word 'ghetto' racist?
In the US, the word started to be used to describe predominantly African American neighbourhoods - especially the densely populated areas that resulted from the mass migration of American blacks from southern states to northern cities - at some point in the 20th Century, according to Mario Small, a professor of sociology at Harvard University.
Then in the 1960s and 1970s, according to David Brown, a professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan "it takes on a very pejorative sense to do with race, poverty, social-economic status, and neighbourhoods that are run-down".
And a few decades later it is being used as a modifier. Brown cites the 1996 book Sckraight From The Ghetto, by Bertice Berry and Joan Coker, which says you know you're "ghetto" if "your weave is longer than your torso" or you "think turning up the heat means turning on another burner on the stove" - and a 1998 song, So Ghetto, by Jay Z.
"It is still largely pejorative, though the Jay Z song is more subversive," he says.
Today the word is fairly widespread in the US, particularly with young people, meaning something like "poor and urban, cheap, substandard", according to linguistic anthropologist George Broadwell at the University of Florida.
