ToTN

[Jonathan Lighter]

I don't get "orientate."  Brits do, though.

   JL

sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: sagehen
Subject: Re: ToTN
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>> >not exactly out of nowhere, since purists have been alternately
>>>complaining for centuries (documented in Dennis Baron's book, if
>>>memory serves) about lazy speakers who persist in lopping the
>>>beginnings and ends of helpless words (like Wilson's people,
>>>complaining about "till" or "bus") or about idle speakers who add
>>>unnecessary, redundant, and superfluous syllables to perfectly good
>>>words (the ones who complain about "unto" and "until"). Of course,
>>>both sects have typically have operated in blithe ignorance of the
>>>actual histories of the words involved.
>>>
>>>LH
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>Um. Does this mean I *shouldn't* write to my local npr station to ask their
>>announcers/news reporters to notice that "preventive" does not have four
>>syllables?
>>AM
>>
>Well, they'd probably note (at least I would if I were they) that
>while "preventive" does indeed have just three syllables,
>"preventative" has four.
>
>LH
~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah, sure. But why? Preventate ??! Preventation?!? I see that OED
(against my expectation) has an entry for "preventative," but I don't get
it.
AM


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