Baburra Posted April 28, 2016 Report Share Posted April 28, 2016 I always hear people using these two words interchangeably and although technically it is supposedly allowable I have looked it up and apparently oriented is used more as an adjective and orientated is used more as a verb. I have to admit initially I didn't even think orientated was an actual word which is why I had to look it up in the first place. I don't know, it just sounds wrong to me. I also see the same thing happen for words like "addictive" wherein people interchange it with the word "addicting" which I don't think is correct at all and it always sticks out to me whenever I come across it. Do you guys know of any other similar words or instances? Which one between orientated or oriented do you use the most and are you also guilty of mistakenly interchanging both of them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
宇崎ちゃん Posted April 28, 2016 Report Share Posted April 28, 2016 I think this answers your question well enough: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11874/oriented-vs-orientated (check the first answer). Quote People say orientated because they hear the word orientation and think that's the verb made from it. It's called a "back-formation". (See Why are "colleagues" becoming "work colleagues"?).Orientated is accepted as an alternate by most dictionaries I've seen. To orient something comes from the medieval practice of building cathedrals so that the apse, the part of the building that contained the altar, would be on the eastern side (hence orient). (I suppose if they screwed up and got it the other way around the architects just shrugged and said, "Well, occidents will happen.") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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