6 Can I assume that some readers are as tired as I am of this word as a kneejerk derogative? Or, rather, tired of the legerdemain of collapsing the word’s neutral meaning—“preference, inclination”—into the pejorative one of “unfairness stemming from prejudice”? It’s the same thing that’s happened with “discrimination,” which started as a good and valuable word, but now no one can even hear it without seeming to lose their mind.