"preventative"

[Peter A. McGraw]

--On Monday, July 19, 2004 12:16 PM -0400 "Dennis R. Preston"
<preston at MSU.EDU> wrote:

> Is "hickish" a technical term?

Not to my knowledge.  The reason I used it is that it seemed to come as
close as any word I could find to conveying the (yes, mildly negative)
stereotyping that for me is associated with the use of "orientated" in
Am.E.  This stereotyping is nowhere near as sharp or specific (to my ear,
at least) as the connotations conveyed by the alternatives you mention.

I considered the "hickish" sentence carefully before hitting the "send"
button, because I thought it might prompt responses hotly denying that the
use of "orientated" was associated with uneducated rural speakers of
Am.E.--and I wondered if there would be any regional pattern to these
responses.  So far there have been no such responses.  Maybe the sentence
wasn't a good trigger, or maybe everybody shares my associations with
"orientated"--or maybe lots of people are on vacation at the moment.

Peter Mc.

Maybe just to be more PC you should
> say it sounds "red-neckish" or "shit-kickerish" or even
> "trailer-trashy" to you.
>
> dInIs (a hick)
>
>> I seem to hear both "preventive" and "preventative" all the time and to
>> use them indiscriminately myself.  Nonetheless, I wonder if any of our
>> U.K. list members would care to weigh in on whether there is a
>> preference on their side of the pond for either one or the other,
>> perhaps paralleling the British preference for "orientated," which
>> sounds hickish to educated American ears (as opposed to "oriented").
>>
>> Peter Mc.
>>
>>
>> --On Sunday, July 18, 2004 10:55 PM -0700 "Arnold M. Zwicky"
>> <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
>>
>>> On Jul 18, 2004, at 5:23 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>
>>>> Boston Sunday Globe, July 19, 2004, p.E11
>>>> "... preventative services ..."
>>>> Well,  an ounce of preventation is worth a pound of cure.
>>>
>>> ca. 988,000 google web hits.  (compared to ca. 3,140,000 for
>>> "preventive".)  it might not be your idea  of standard, but it's damn
>>> common.  AHD4 lists "preventative" as an alternative to "preventive",
>>> in fact.  MWDEU tells us that "The critics have panned _preventative_
>>> for over a century, preferring its shorter synonym _preventive_ in
>>> spite of the fact that both words have been around for over 300 years
>>> and both have been in regular use by reputable writers."  there is
>>> more, including the analogy to "authoritative" and "talkative".
>>>
>>> also: ca. 3,610 hits for "preventation" (which i don't much like, but
>>> there it is).
>>>
>>> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
>>
>>
>>
>> *****************************************************************
>> Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
>> ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
>         Asian and African Languages
> Wells Hall A-740
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
> Office: (517) 353-0740
> Fax: (517) 432-2736



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************