I find... [View all]

... bad grammar from people who should know better, especially professional writers, to be exasperating. I've seen journalists, novelists, and screenwriters succumb to this repeatedly. What, you may ask, has your bloomers in a bunch? It's this: The use of the non-word, ORIENTATE.
The word is a perversion of "orient", as in orienting one's self with a compass. "ATION" is a suffix, as in presentation. When you make a presentation, do you presentate it? God, I hope not. When you converse with someone, do you conversate? Please...
So if you were dropped on your head, you may very well suffer concussion, and when you stood up, you might be momentarily disoriented, but you would NOT be disorientated. It is worth noting that the algorithm that tried to correct me when I wrote "presentate" and "conversate" did not correct "ORIENTATE", or "disorientated". BAD algorithm.
I've found that the English seem to have a fetish for this grammatical irregularity. I read it in British novels, and hear it on British TV shows and movies with disturbing regularity. I mean, the English should be better than most, especially their colonial cousins, at speaking English, wouldn't you think?
Sigh... I guess it's just another sign of the inexorable decline of civilization. Or is that "civilizate"?
Oh, never mind.