Self-Deprecating vs. Self Depreciating

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, this is Shelly calling from Carnelian Bay, California, which is on the north shore of Lake Tahoe.

So what’s on your mind today, Shelly?

Well, actually, it’s something that is fairly subtle, but it really stood out to me recently.

I’ve been listening to a wonderful etiquette podcast.

And on one episode the female host spoke of someone as being self-depreciating.

And honestly, when I heard that I stopped in my tracks and I thought surely I misheard her or perhaps she just had a rare slip of the tongue.

But then a couple of episodes later the male host spoke of someone speaking in a self-depreciating manner.

And I definitely can be self-deprecating on occasion, but I would never describe myself as self-depreciating.

I’d never heard that before.

So I’m left wondering, is self-depreciating even a real word or expression?

And if it is, is the subtle difference between depreciating and deprecating a regional one?

Wow.

No, it’s a historical one, though.

And you, Shelley, are confirming that a language change is pretty much complete.

Really?

Yeah, absolutely.

This is a great usage question, and it’s easy to compliment a question, call all questions great, but this is important because many people are going to have your point of view where self-depreciating sounds wrong.

But there was a time when self-depreciating was correct and self-deprecating wasn’t something that anyone would say.

Wow.

Yeah.

And so it’s flipped.

Somewhere around the 1940s, the uses of deprecate took over from uses of depreciate when talking about self-depreciating or self-deprecating.

And they flipped and it became more common, even though it’s much older than that.

The usage isn’t as far along in British English.

But in the U.S. and Canada, self-depreciating is far less common than self-deprecating.

The usage expert Brian Garner in his book Modern English Usage says that self-deprecating is 50 times as common as self-depreciating, although self-deprecating is traditionally viewed as incorrect.

But he also notes that the battle is over.

And this is important because Garner is usually very reluctant to give up any ground on language change.

So the fact that he agrees that it’s just done and to stop arguing the point is important.

So I’m not wrong in saying self-deprecating.

No, you’re not wrong.

There may be a handful, a tiny number of people still hanging on to self-depreciating.

And self-depreciating isn’t wrong.

It’s just now less common.

It just makes me want to call my accountant, though.

Yeah, and that’s what happened, Martha.

I believe that that’s what happened.

So deprecate has traditionally meant to disapprove, to protest against, to criticize.

Well, depreciate was both meant to lessen the value of something and to represent as of little value or to claim that something is unworthy of esteem.

But those meetings are so close that you can see how they became interchangeable.

But as financial literacy became more common, terms like depreciate seemed more appropriate for discussing property and finances than discussing one’s character or one’s self-worth.

Sounds good. Well, thank you so much.

All right. Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We’d love to hear more questions like that.

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