“Discover” can be used in a neutral manner, for example when used in the context of to find out something, or to uncover how something works. However, when used to suggest that a place did not exist, was not known by Europeans or was not inhabited prior to European encounter it is far from neutral. For example: “painted almost 40 years after the discovery of ‘America’ by Columbus in 1492, this work of art was one of the earliest attempts by an artist to give an impression of the new continent.” Such a text essentially omits the fact that the continent was populated with thriving societies, and thus is pejorative, as it implies neither art nor people existed prior to Columbus’s “discovery.”