I came across this interesting excerpt from the autobiography of the author of the Dynamic Programming method:
“[the word dynamic] has a very interesting property as an adjective, and that is it's impossible to use the word dynamic in a pejorative sense. [...] Thus, I thought dynamic programming was a good name. It was something not even a Congressman could object to.” - Richard Bellman
And I wondered if there is a linguistic way to formalize such concept and if I could find a small list of such adjectives.
I don't believe it's really impossible to use it in a pejorative sense: "the legislation on this topic is too dynamic". But it's a scenario that I had to search a subject that is specifically meant to not be dynamic, so the "pejorativeness" comes from the antithesis. Adjectives like "fast" and "strong" can still be used pejoratively on objects that are meant to be somewhat fast or strong, like a car going too fast or a pepper that is too strong.
EDIT: I guess something that is normally dynamic can be too dynamic too. "The variables in this chaotic system are too dynamic" or something like it. So maybe only affordance adjectives are really in this category?
I believe "agile" is another of such adjectives, and to use it negatively hard because it's about the ability to be quick. I wonder if such affordance adjectives are consistently positive adjectives.
Does this make sense as a definition?