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Examples want we? Well, the same empty head that conjured "orientate", no doubt from "orientation", could easily produce "personificate". Then once it is embraced by the coddling apologists and put in a dictionary it can make its contribution to "retardify" the language.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I have always been suspicious of the word orientation itself. The past passive participle of Latin orior is ortus, so the abstract nominal form should be ortion. But it is funny how one group gets its its up when you verb a noun, as happened with orient, and another comes down pseudo-medievally on back formations such as orientate. The OED (1st brick and mortar version) lists orientate without censure and provides citations from the mid 19th century. Surely long enough to allow its naturalization. I like the hue and heft of orientate but seldom use it unmockingly. But anything that stokes the peevological bonfires is A-OK with me.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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 "retardify"
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old hand
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Then once it is embraced by the coddling apologists and put in a dictionary it can make its contribution to "retardify" the language. Isn't that a Bushism? I hardly can listen to the man without wanting to tear out my prescriptivist hair... but wouldn't he be the poster child darling of descriptivists? He personifies that make-it-up-as-you-go free-wheeling linguism.... :0)
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but wouldn't he be the poster child darling of descriptivists? He personifies that make-it-up-as-you-go free-wheeling linguismThis was too much for a soi-disant descriptivist, such as moi, to let go by without an observation. The prescriptivists wouldn't know a real grammatical rule if it walked up and bit them on their tukhes. A descriptivist determines what the rules governing language are by describing how people use said language. Prescriptivists make up rules, which more often than not they themselves don't follow ( link, link, and link), or borrow them from some other grammar hooligans. The latter use faulty logic, ignore history, and just get the facts plain wrong.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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but wouldn't he be the poster child darling of descriptivists? He personifies that make-it-up-as-you-go free-wheeling linguism.... :0) This is a classic example of the misconception that descriptivists accept any usage as correct as long as one person has used it. This is probably the best refutation (or should that be refution?) of that idea that I have run across.
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old hand
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Examples want we? Well, the same empty head that conjured "orientate", no doubt from "orientation", could easily produce "personificate". Then once it is embraced by the coddling apologists and put in a dictionary it can make its contribution to "retardify" the language. ...or how about pontificate, which is what peevologists on both sides of the grammatical fence are doing in superabundantiation!
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Then once it is embraced by the coddling apologists and put in a dictionary it can make its contribution to "retardify" the language. Isn't that a Bushism? I hardly can listen to the man without wanting to tear out my prescriptivist hair... but wouldn't he be the poster child darling of descriptivists? He personifies that make-it-up-as-you-go free-wheeling linguism.... :0) ...which is nowhere near the definition of descriptivism. Bushisms are simply, well, Bushisms. They are most noticeable not so much for their grammatical errors as for their logical errors. In that sense he is much more aligned with the prescriptivist camp.  ...what dzhaymz & faldy said.
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old hand
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I'm sure you all realize my tongue was firmly cheek-planted, and that I was indulging in a little pot-stirring today... But having said that, I think Pullum got this exactly right, Fal:
"But there had better be a third position, because these two extreme ones are both utterly insane."
Most of the contributors on this website seem to represent that "third position", which IMHO is a good thing. As in life, black and white are rare, and the many shades of gray predominate. :0)
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From the third one of your link , link and link
"I do go by sounds as well as by grammar." Sounds good to me.
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