You crazy yanks

Briterican writes:

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Disorientated - not pronounced differently, but yanks just say "disoriented".

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That's because "disorientate" isn't a word.The verb is "orient." "-ate" is a suffix used to turn words that aren't verbs into verbs ("calibrate" is "caliber" + "-ate," for example.) Thus, "orientate" is redundant.And let's not forget "ad-ver-TISE-ment" vs. "ad-VER-tise-ment."I'm currently doing a play, Sherlock Holmes' Excellent Adventure, that requires British accents and we've decided to buck the guidance of our dialect coach and pronounce it "scone," rhyming with "cone," rather than rhyming with "con," though the latter is the preferred pronunciation.Nobody in the US would know what a "skahn" is.To paraphrase Steve Martin:They call a car's "hood" a "bonnet" and a "cookie" a "biscuit." It's like they have a different word for everything!

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Briterican responds to me:

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I'm hesitant to disagree, as I completely understand where you are coming from (and because I admire your intellectual prowess hehe), but...

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Disorientate - definition of disorientate by The Free Dictionary

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Oh, I know it's in the dictionary. Been around for a while, too, but that's just because people keep using it as a word. And it makes sense why: So many other words that have "-ation" as the suffix when a noun will have "-ate" as the suffix when a verb ("complicate" -> "complication," "renovate" -> "renovation") so it's only natural that if the noun is "orientation," then the verb must be "orientate."Kinda like why so many people have trouble saying "nuclear," pronouncing it as "nu-kyuh-lar." So many other words have that "kyuh-lar" construction such as "muscular" and "vernacular," including an extremely related word, "molecular," that poor "nuclear" gets caught up in the habits...it's one of the few if not the only word in English that has the "klee-ar" pronunciation.But it isn't.And "task" isn't a transitive verb. I don't "task" you with an assignment. Instead, I "assign" you a task.I never said I was rational about this.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Larni responds to me:

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So unless your coach is English I would take the advice as a crap shoot.

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She is, and I do know that there is variation in British pronunciation, but from what I can find, "skon" is the "preferred" pronunciation despite the fact that I can't recall anybody ever saying it that way the entire time I lived in the UK.But, since we're playing to an American audience, we're going with the pronunciation the Americans will understand. We don't need them wondering, "What on earth is a 'dropped skon' and why would you want a recipe for one?"

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

caffeine responds to me:

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Whereabouts were you based?

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London, High Ken area the first time (late 80s), the West End the second (mid-90s).

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.