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Joined: Aug 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Each version is used here, but to my ear crematorium is far more familiar.
The headings in the local business-listing phone book are crematories and pet crematories. However, the names of individual companies listed use the term crematorium slightly more often than crematory. So too, google gives slightly more hits for crematorium than for crematory.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
I agree that crematory is the word less commonly used. In my eyes either would be fine really considering they both have the sound root - but if one prefectly good version existed first (i.e. crematorium), then the other is utterly superfluous .... welcome to English.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Another vice versa. The families are burned up, not the deceased.
My dictionary gives only "crematory". The Latinate ending is a fad, as in "lubritorium"
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I have never heard the word crematory in English here, only crematorium.
It is a crématoire in French though - which would translate directly into crematory. Curiouser & curiouser.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
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All the top 60 google hits for Crematory are USA. I dind't look further down the list. Many of the top 60 google hits for Crematorium are UK, Australia, New Zealand and Netherlands. The BBC site seems to use Crematorium so that must be the official UK line. I'm pretty sure that I have heard Crematory mentioned but probably never written.
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I will bet a silk pajama that crematory arose, or at least is frequently used, to euphemistically substitute an unfamiliar word for a familiar but unpleasant one.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A "Crematorium" is a container for Cremo Cigars. They had a slogan "Spit is a horrid word, but it's worse on the end of your cigar." Cigars used to be made by tubercular hags who licked the wrapper leaf to make it fit snugly around the core. YUM, YUM. Incidentally, a large part of the wrapper leaves were grown in New England, where special barns limited the amount of sunshine, to make leaf grow slowly without prominent veins.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
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I'm not the brightest buld in the house, but in all my 57 years I had NEVER seen "crematory" until this present story hit the papers. In seeking a synonym for "cremate,", I thought of "immolate," but upon looking it up learned that to immolate means to sprinkle with holy grits, then sacrifice, as by fire.  HOLY GRITS? Another serving of Soylent Green, anyone?
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Joined: Nov 2000
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
I have this theory that 'crematory' was invented by the print-media to get around the necessity of having to deal with a Latin plural in case anyone had to write about crematoria. Maybe they were trying, for once, to avoid pissing off us purists who are still bemoaning the fact that 'condominiums' has entirely replaced the correct 'condominia', along with other similar horrors.
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