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I'll bet that this one is "old hat" for you wordy-birdies, but I am nagged by the question of the validity of the word "orientate." I most recently heard it spoken in a public lecture given by a respected Doctor of Anthropology from the National Museum of Natural History. He mentioned how important it was to notice how particular remains were "orientated" at an excavation.
Is this a word? And, if so, how does it differ in meaning from the more common "oriented"? Thanks for your help!
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old hand
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Oh, yes, this "word" has been discussed in much detail here. I think it would be proper to leave this one to Jackie, though.
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Pooh-Bah
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From our past discussion it seems that this word is more common in the UK:
To orient: “He . . . stood for a moment, orientating himself exactly in the light of his knowledge” (John le Carré).
My UK dictionary shows disorientated but not disoriented.
The easy way to look up previous discussions is to type the word into "search", selecting all forums, all dates.
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I think of the word orientate as applying specifically
in terms of direction (north, south, east, or west).
(See, sometimes I can show a little restraint.)
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The noun "Orient" means east. The intranstive verb "orient" means to face east. The transitive verb "orient" means to situate something such that it faces east or is alligned to the east. Something so arranged has an east-west "orientation" as a result of the action of the person doing the situating or alligning. From the quite legitimate work "orientation" derives the beast barbarism "orientate." While it cannot be said that "there is no such word," it can be said that persons who use this word (1) are ill-informed, (2) need correction and (3), if resistent to correction, ought be boiled in their own suet. And, of course, they need our prayers.
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While I'm not a huge fan of the word myself, Merriam-Webster says that you have 150 years of history against you. Maybe someone who has access to the OED could proffer excerpts from other writers who should be "boiled in their own suet." 
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I am unimpressed by the authority of Merriam-Webster in this case, as this dictionary is descriptive rather then prescriptive. To fix the first use of a barbarism at a point 150 years ago simply means that some illiteracies are less vincible than others and that their imitation is persistent. Thus Fowler says of "orient" and "orientate": "The second, a long variant of the first, seems likely to prevail in the common figurative use." (2d ed., 1965, p. 423)
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I have always been of an opinion which tended towards that of Jackie and Father Steve, but I thought it would be instructive to see how M-W and the OED treat these. interestingly, this is one case where they agree in the main.
'orient' predates 'orientate' by about 100 years (ca. 1740 vs 1849). the original sense of the verb orient was to arrange to face to the east (they verbed the noun, which comes from the Latin word for east). from there the word has been generalized. (imagine that!) it seems that 'orientate' may NOT be a back-formation from 'orientation' (as I had also thought) but rather it was formed from the French orient-er in the same manner as some other English verbs [e.g., separate, create, isolate from separer, creer, isoler]. so it is completely parallel to orient in all of its senses and appears to have developed on a separate path!
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some citations from the OED:
1727–41 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Orienting, In most religions, particular care has been taken to have their temples oriented.—St. Gregory Thaumaturgus is said to have made a mountain give way, because it prevented the orienting of a church he was building.
1842 Brande Dict. Sci. etc. 857/2 In surveying, to orient a plan signifies to mark its situation or bearing with respect to the four cardinal points.
1849 Ecclesiologist IX. 153 It was always thought preferable to orientate rightly where possible.
1866 Ecclesiologist XXVII. 158 Gaining the knowledge requisite for practical working... and orientating himself in general.
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#9883
11/06/2000 12:51 PM
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A pa's nip is a vegatable. For a human to resort to the soil is to vegetate. So cogitate on that, dear Father Steve, and pray remember that language (unlike religion and other tosh grounded in a priori assumptions) is whatever we make of it 
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whatever we make of it And for a quick summary of the current state of play try the Cobuilder site, which has: "The evidence In the British parts of the Bank of English, `disorient' occurs 182 times, `disorientate' 308 times. In the American parts, `disorient' occurs 189 times, `disorientate' twice. ADVICE You can say something disorients you or disorientates you. In British English, disorientate is more common." http://www.cobuild.collins.co.uk/cgi-bin/wwatchlook
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I'm British, and I can't stand 'orientate' or 'disorientate'. I refuse to to use them in anything I write, if I can help it. But overwhlemingly, I think, the UK tends to use it, and one voice soon gets swamped...
A bit like the tendency to use 'myself' in business letters - but that thread's been done already.
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Shanks, could your aversion to orientate have anything to with where you went to school? I find the word jarring "myself" even though NZ English follows British English quite closely. Given that my (single parent) father taught his children to read, I wondered if there might be a chance that "orient" is standard in the English taught on the subcontinent. Or am I, to use that wonderfully colourful, if politically incorrect, expression from the days of Raj, just going doolally?
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In reply to:
Or am I, to use that wonderfully colourful, if politically incorrect, expression from the days of Raj, just going doolally?
My father has no particular connection with the Raj or the subcontinent but uses doolally all the time as a semi-humorous equivalent of "round the bend". Why should it be considered politically incorrect?
Bingley
Bingley
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doolally.Why should it be considered politically incorrect?
The suggestion was inspired by the discussion about Bombay/Mumbai - a name change perceived by many to have been motivated by concerns about political correctness. As "doolally" derives from Deolali, not far from Bombay/Mumbai, it occurred to me that using it might also prove injudicious. I love the sound of "doolally" and made the reference more in jest than in earnest.
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enthusiast
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In differential geometry there is the definition of "orientation" of a surface. It means - more or less - that that surface has two faces . By my memories, I would say that - for example -
"the Moebius strip in a non-orientated surface"
Do you know what a Mobius strip is? Take a long rectangle of paper, give it a twist (just once) and then glue together the short opposite edges: now a ladybird can walk over it covering the whole surface , since there is no longer a side "up" and a side ""down". I like it very much (but I prefere the Klein bottle, harder to describe...)
Ciao
Emanuela
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In reply to:
As "doolally" derives from Deolali
.. and are the inhabitants of this place notoriously mentally unstable, and possibly lurking in the genealogical hinterland of some of us?
Bingley
Bingley
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#9892
11/07/2000 10:46 AM
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Emanuela
I read a book on topology many years ago in the school library and was fascinated by the Mobius strip and the Klein bottle. I believe there is a glass-blower who sells 'Klein bottles' over the 'net, if you're interested. Of course, since he can't twist them in the fourth dimension, they're not 'actual' Klein bottles, but the closest thing you'll get to a bottle without an inside.
The shape that interests me most, topologically, is the torus - it seems to be capable of doing anything, and fitting into just about any sphere of scientific experimentation...
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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Speaking of Möbius strips and Klein (little?) bottles, one of the geometrical phenomena that I love best is the tesseract, the 4th-dimenional (or hyper-) cube. You can get a two-dimensional representation of this at: http://www.illusionworks.com/html/tesseract.html
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Yes, I'm a bit of a torus fan myself - love the tesseract site, Anna.
Looks like there are more mathematicians on this site than former English students.
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I have an idea, Maverick.
We can count up uses of "momentarily" versus "disorientate" - the loser gets the hot lard treatment that Father Steve is cooking up over there in sunny Seattle.
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Looks like there are more mathematicians on this site than former English students.
As someone whose idea of advanced mathematics was using a PC to add instead of a calculator, I have to say that the statement above seems very true. It's also one of the nicest things about this board. With my lifelong indifference toward maths, I have always admired Lewis Carroll for being both a mathematician and a wordsmith. Then I stumbled across this place, and discovered that the combination is by no means as rare as I had thought. Thanks to all the renaissance beings who have shown that a love of science and of language are not mutually exclusive.
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>Looks like there are more mathematicians on this site than former English students.
I'm trying to think of someone who has admitted to the latter...
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BA (Eng Lit) Bombay University (at the Elphinstone College, to be precise, with one of the most wonderful English departments one could ever hope for). No qualifications in maths at all.
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at the Elphinstone College, to be preciseYou went to a college for elves?? No wonder your thoughts are so magical!
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Pooh-Bah
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I've come to the conclusion that science is the new art. There are so many exciting things being written about science these days that it almost puts the novel in the shade.
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#9901
11/07/2000 10:52 PM
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>Looks like there are more mathematicians on this site than former English students.
I'm trying to think of someone who has admitted to the latter...
Does current English student count?
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Shanks claims a "BA (Eng Lit) Bombay University (at the Elphinstone College, to be precise)."
Jackie wonders: "You went to a college for elves??"
Silly Jackie. Elphinstone College is a distinguished school housed entirely in single-storey buildings made from elphinstone -- little, tiny rocks which, unlike sandstone and granite, cannot be stacked very many one atop the other.
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It's a contraction (corruption) of 'Elephant stoned', in memory of the feat of some of our more enterprising students who fed two kilos of 'good Manali grass' to a pachyderm. Others later tried to lynch them for wasting all that good stuff, but lost interest halfway through when they got the munchies. Seriously, though, Elphi (as we called it) had a reputation for drug-taking (and strongly left wing views) though the '70s and '80s, and many's the time when others heard where I was from, they'd say: "Oh, Elphi-stoned..." and tell their daughters to avoid me! cheer the sunshine warrior ps. If you really want to know - Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone was Governor of Bombay for a while, and the college (now some 135 years old, and housed in a beautiful, if filthy, neo-Gothic building) was named after him. The Raj is dead - long live the Raj!
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Fascinating stuff, Anna - but it would never fit in the boot of my car
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After reading all these replies, I can only conclude that "orientate" is a perfectly fine word, with lots of historical and contemporary usage to support it.
This conclusion has both affirming and unsettling aspects. Affirming in that my sneaking prejudice against the word and its users has been shown to be just that--a prejudice--and once again I am shown how easily prejudices can evolve when one does not dare to question one's assumptions.
Unsettling, however, in that I am left with less certainty of the importance of making fine distinctions in language. Perhaps the previous poster who mentioned a difference between descriptive and prescriptive dictionaries could help me by elaborating on this difference ?
Am I philosophizing too much? If so, please excuse.(But if we can talk about stoned elephants, is anything out?)
Side thought: Does a poster post posts?
Thanks,
MM
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Dear Metameta ~
It is all so simple, once you apprehend it.
Descriptive dictionaries pander to the lowest common denominator. They are driven by misuse. They enshrine the loss of fine distinctions. They justify the spread of ignorance. They pollute the word pool. They are doubtless of the Devil.
Prescriptive writing about the language is an act of great bravery. It withstands the slings and arrows of accusations of elitism, intellectualism, snobbery and the like. It requires education before use. It denies that one person's preference is as good as that of any other and thereby upholds the Platonic ideal. It is a thing much pleasing to God Himself.
Proponents of the former are responsible for signs which read "All-Nite Diner" and "Quik Lube." Of the latter, for great literature. Of the former, for the spread of illiteracy like a fungus growing on the skin of civilisation. Of the latter, for the preservation of books and libraries.
Descriptivists think Bart Simpson is actually funny. Prescriptivists know that Jeeves and Wooster are funny. D's drink blended whiskey; P's only single malt. D's wear "this year's colours" while P's know that the Creator ordained charcoal, navy blue and Harris tweed for all time.
Anything else I can explain for you?
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#9908
11/11/2000 11:21 PM
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a careful reading of Father Steve's philippic should have provided you with this: there are no important prescriptive dictionaries (by definition) -- there is only prescriptive writing about language, which some may consider to be elitist, intellectual, snobbish and the like.
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#9909
11/11/2000 11:48 PM
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Precisely.
And thanks, tsuwm, for comparing my mini-tirade with the speeches of Cicero against Mark Antony and of Demosthenes against Philip II of Macedon. Such company!
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Yes, Father, there is at least one more thing you might be able to help me understand.
From where do the prescriptivists draw their authority? I mean, on what do they base their decisions? Is it simply from some Prescriptivist Dogma, or does it arise within the individual as the result of careful study?
In other words, is prescriptivism more a body of knowledge, or a method?
Thank you,
MM
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Descriptivists think Bart Simpson is actually funny.
Ah, but it was first from Bart Simpson that I learned the answer to that most clichéd of Zen riddles: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
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