Oriented vs. Orientated

Charles Wells charles at FREUDE.COM
Tue Mar 27 19:10:51 UTC 2001


In my experience (I lived in England for two months once so I am an expert?)
"orientated" is the standard usage in Britain.

>so i'm kickin' back, watching a marathon of "the Crocodile Hunter" on ANIMAL
>PLANET a while back, and i am repeatedly interested in steve irwin's use of
>the word "orientated."
>
>take a look at the following example :
>
>   ENGLISH  : That gator really needs to get oriented.
>   IRWINESE : We need to get him orientated.
>
>to me, a speaker of good ol' american english, the phrasing that sounds
>right, of course, is the first one.  i started trying to figure out why our
>dare-devil hero chose to use the other form instead.
>
>maybe it's a transitive/intransitive differentiation that just isn't really
>(if ever) used in a.e. -- getting the gator oriented ("orientated") versus
>the gator getting himself oriented (just "oriented")
>
>can anyone else rattle off a couple other pairs that would function as
>above, or perhaps add anything to my conclusions ?
>
>best,
>michael
>============================================
>           michael hunter horlick
>               michael at rfa.org
>--------------------------------------------
>      Sileann do chara agus do namhaid
>       nach bhfaighidh tú bá choiche.
>                  - Irish Proverb
>============================================



Charles Wells, 105 South Cedar St., Oberlin, Ohio 44074, USA.
email: charles at freude.com.
home phone: 440 774 1926.
professional website: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/math/wells/home.html
personal website: http://www.oberlin.net/~cwells/index.html
NE Ohio Sacred Harp website: http://www.oberlin.net/~cwells/sh.htm



More information about the Ads-l mailing list