Steven:
Regarding "disorientated", I hear it also and shudder. We are becoming an illiterate society (literally), as we spurn the written word for the electronically transmitted image. It will probably continue, and when those of my generation die off, who will complain?
The current tendency to switch and confuse various forms and grammatical constructions continues unabated. "Disorientated" obviously should be "disoriented", and those who use the former are trying to make an adjectival form directly from the noun form "disorientation". This process works with "education/educated" where you just drop the -ion and replace it with -ed. But it's a miserable failure with "disorientation".
We see this with "preventative" used as an adjective. I even got a letter from a medical person recently, touting his expertise in "preventative" medicine. (Advertising by medical people is another of my pet peeves, but not a subject for this thread.) In my view, the adjective is "preventive" and "preventative", if it is a word at all, should be a noun. For example, the flu vaccine is (itself) a preventative, but the process of giving it is preventive medicine.
I've already expounded on the current use of "impotency" (in our Viagra era) instead of the proper word, "impotence". It's enough to drive me to violency.
Jack |
