Being a big fan of shorter words that mean the same thing, it has come to make me cringe when people say "Orientated" when "Oriented" works just fine. ''Along the same vein, I often hear people pronounce the word "pronounciate". I guess it makes sense, changing "ation" to "ate" is a common way of turning nouns into verbs in EnglishLanguage'' ---- What a relief to find that this problem has little currency on Wiki. ---- see LessSyllablesMoreMeaning ''It's an extra syllable, but that really '''should''' be FewerSyllablesMoreMeaning.'' Bold Definitions fit the use of Oriented rather than Orientated in ObjectOrientedProgramming (and other similar uses): o•ri•en•tate (?-tt, -n-, r-) v. o•ri•en•tat•ed, o•ri•en•tat•ing, o•ri•en•tates v. tr. To orient: "He... stood for a moment, orientating himself exactly in the light of his knowledge" (John le Carré). If you are a fan of "shorter words", and want to say orient when you mean orientate, I suppose the next thing you will be using is oriention for orientation --- and if you guys want to abbreviate every word, why do you insist on expanding preventive to preventative? Next thing you will be expanding prevention to preventation to match your new" word! '''v. or•i•ent•ed, or•i•ent•ing, or•i•ents (?t, r-)''' v. tr. To locate or place in a particular relation to the points of the compass: orient the swimming pool north and south. To locate or position so as to face the east. To build (a church) with the nave laid out in an east-west direction and the main altar usually at the eastern end. '''To align or position with respect to a point or system of reference: oriented the telescope toward the moon; oriented her interests toward health care.''' To determine the bearings of. '''To make familiar with or adjusted to facts, principles, or a situation.''' '''To focus (the content of a story or film, for example) toward the concerns and interests of a specific group.''' ---- 'Orient' is mostly a transitive verb; it takes a direct object. 'Orientate' is mostly an intransitive verb -- no direct object. Nevertheless, many people use them interchangeably or use one exclusively. Me, I find myself using 'orient' no matter what. On the other hand, I find Brits and people from the non-US British Empire lands using 'orientate' exclusively. In other words, it probably doesn't matter. -- ElizabethWiethoff ----- That's why I use object-oriented when talking about C++, because it works on actual objects, and object-orientated when talking about OOP in ANSI C - it has no objects, but can emulate the idea to some extent. ------ Is this like being "twitterpated"? ''Can one instead be "twitterped"?'' One who wears shoes made of birds. ''If you really like the shoes, you are a pedophile, no?'' ---- CategoryNaturalLanguage