Make Your Point: PREFERENTIAL

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pronounce PREFERENTIAL:

preff er EN chull

connect this word to others:

At the heart of the words preferential, preference, and prefer is the Latin ferre, meaning "to carry, to bring, or to bear."

The ferre family is huge in English. It includes the words confer, different, fertile, and probably hundreds of others. See if you can recall three more that we've explored:

1. Literally "with a voice that carries," v___fer___ means "shouting loudly or crying out loudly."

2. Literally "carrying in," i_fer__tial means "involving figuring out information based on evidence and reasoning."

3. Literally "carrying down," __fer__tial means "respectfully acknowledging someone else's authority or judgment."

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

The word "prefer" has Latin bits that literally mean "to carry before," or less literally, "to place in front of, to move forward or up, especially to advance or promote someone." That someone is, presumably, the person you like best.

The meaning "to advance or promote" is the first one we used for "prefer" in English, but over the centuries "prefer" morphed into the meaning we're familiar with now: to prefer things or people is to like them better than others.

By 1754, we were using "preferential" to mean "having or showing a preference for some specific person, and therefore giving special treatment to that person and not others."

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Adjective: "To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, if you're used to getting preferential treatment, then equality can feel like discrimination."

Other forms:

The adverb is "preferentially," as in "She gets treated preferentially; she's the teacher's pet."

how to use it:

"Preferential" is a formal, common word.

It's perfect for avoiding clunkier phrases like "reverse-discriminatory" or "biased toward." Pick it when you want to emphasize how people are acting in a biased way, favorably, toward some specific person or group.

Most often, we talk about someone's preferential treatment or status. But we can also talk about preferential prices, systems, policies, access, services and so on.

examples:

"The preferential treatment Boobie received sometimes caused resentment among the other players. The coaches were aware of the gripes, but the bottom line was that Boobie had the talent and they did not."
—H. G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights, 1990

"There are those... who in their heart of hearts still pine for a universe whose center, focus and fulcrum is the Earth. But if we are to deal with the Cosmos we must first understand it, even if our hopes for some unearned preferential status are, in the process, contravened."
— Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980

has this page helped you understand "preferential"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "preferential" without saying "privileged" or "favored."

try it out:

Nelson Mandela described being in prison:

"The kitchen was rife with smuggling. The cooks—all of whom were common-law prisoners—kept the best food for themselves or their friends. Often they would lay aside the tastiest morsels for the warders in exchange for favours or preferential treatment."

That's so unfair, but so typical of human behavior, right?

With that in mind as an example, talk about a time you noticed or experienced some people getting preferential treatment. Was it in school, at work, or in some other situation? Who got the preferential treatment, and why?

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Recapitate the Headlines."

I'll give you some real but decapitated headlines, along with a selection of heads, and you try to reassemble them as they were originally published. (Or, feel free to play in "wrong answers only" mode, assembling the headlines in whatever way you find funniest.) You can check out some examples here.

Try these today:

__________ being raced by trooper
__________ driving a motorcycle in his birthday suit
__________ in the US illegally

Apologetic tourist fined after
Florida AG invites people to alert his office if their ex is
Longwood Florida super speeder arrested, thinks he was

To see the correct versions, scroll all the way down.

review this word:

1. A near opposite of PREFERENTIAL is

A. IMPLIED.
B. EXCITABLE.
C. DISCRIMINATORY.

2. In the Harry Potter stories, Draco gets preferential treatment from Professor Snape, who _____.

A. tolerates all kinds of disruptive behavior from Draco, but not the other students
B. grades Draco's papers much more harshly than he grades those of the other students
C. ignores the many absences and tardies that Draco and the other students accumulate

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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