‘P*de!

An Ordinary Language Analysis of an Estonian Slur

There is a curious old word used to derogatorily refer to (mostly) male homosexuals common

to most Central and Eastern Europe, all the way from Slovenia to Estonia. This cross-cultural,

cross-linguistic slur traces its origins to Ancient Greece and its practice of pederasty, from

Ancient Greek, παίδ- 'boy, child (stem)' ἐραστής and 'lover', a socially acknowledged sexual

and romantic relationship between an adult man and a boy.

The present paper is a loosely ruminative analysis of the Estonian instance of the slur

'pederast'. Inspired by and invoking the spirit of the Ordinary Language tradition (Hansen,

2020), my examination engages in a reflective exploration of the semantic content and the

sociocultural implications of this heavy-loaded term within the Estonian context.

Although its most common form is technically a name clipping from ‘pederast’, ‘pede’

still wears its descriptive content on a sleeve, sustaining misleading and dangerous stereotyping

that undermines public discourse and perpetuates discrimination by reducing its target to a

sexual deviant, therefore, conflating male homosexuality with an abhorrent practice: child

molesting (Salter, 2018).

In consequence, delving into the term's pejorative nature requires an analysis that

intertwines both its semantic and sociolinguistic dimensions and that naturally extends into the

realm of pejorative speech acts. For that reason, I primarily make use of Jeshion's (2021)

taxonomy in an effort to unravel the intricacies of how the derogatory component is embedded

in its linguistic meaning, delineating its essentialising and reductive implications (Jeshion,

2013; Neufeld, 2019) and shedding light on how the term encapsulates patriarchal and

misogynistic ideologies, thus turning it into tool of gender policing (Ashwell, 2016). As a
result, I call for a dual classification, designating the word as both a canonical-descriptive slur

and a particularly queer case of a gendered slur.

Finally, based on these findings, I compare the slur to its (roughly) English equivalent

'faggot', highlighting subtle divergences in meaning and usage, and tackling the inherent

challenges of its reclamation (Jeshion, 2020; Saldo, 2021), acknowledging the intricate

dynamics that shape the reception and potential transformation of such a term within the

specific cultural and linguistic context of Estonia.

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