Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Huh... it is a word!

One of my pet peeves has always been the use of the word "disorientated". Every time I hear someone say, "I was so disorientated!", I cringe.

I got to thinking about it again the other day when I heard someone using it to describe the after-affects of cold medicine and decided I would blog, begging people to never use that word again! It's disoriented, not disorientated!

But then I decided to look it up.

And according to dictionary.com, disorientated is a word.

Whoops. I was wrong.

dis·o·ri·en·tate

–verb (used with object), -tat·ed, -tat·ing.
"to disorient"


But dictionary.com also makes the distinction between "disoriented" (which it says can be an adjective) and "disorientated" (which it says is a verb). So are the words really interchangeable? I can't find a good explanation online.

Help!

1 comment:

  1. Ha! Totally on the same boat about this one, Kim. Words that annoy me: notate, orientate, and presentate.

    Did I check and see if they are real words? No. I think I have the right to remain angry when I hear people use these words. It just doesn't sound right...

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