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.:Thursday, June 22, 2006:.
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Disorientated
... or, my current word peeve of the week:
Was driving to my cousins' 25th anniversary party the other day in Maple Ridge and passed by a sign for "Adult Orientated Living." It REALLY ticked me off. Nevermind the semi-subversive "Adult" content in the title, but the word "orientated" got on my nerves.
I want to know who hired whom to write up a large billboard representing a (supposed) real estate development without consulting a thesaurus or dictionary first. Of all the words/phrases (such as "slippery slope" or "as per" or "imminent danger" or "pussy posse") that tick me off in the world, 'orientated' shot to the top when I saw it. It irked/annoyed/vexed/grinded me to see such an offensive word. And it's not offensive in and of itself, just the way people use it. Why? Because they are misappropriating meaning AND adding a '-ated' where there ought not to be; as well as not using the word "centric" which is really what they mean: Welcome empty nesters, your kids can't live here and we'll make it really hard for people to visit because we'll only provide 5 visitor parking spaces even though we've built this sprawling real estate deal next to a chemically-enriched golf course that was a perfectly good blueberry farm 5 years ago. Come celebrate your pension earnings with us.
So the the word "orientate" is actually listed in Merriam Webster's dictionary online as:
orientate
One entry found for orientate. Main Entry: ori·en·tate
Pronunciation: 'Or-E-&n-"tAt, 'or-, -"en-
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -tat·ed; -tat·ing
transitive senses : ORIENT
intransitive senses : to face or turn to the east
If you also look up the word "orient" in M-W you'll find a more clear meaning of the word. Mostly having to do with facing eastwards or positioning one's self. Okay, you could argue that billboard is 'positioning' a marketplace of would-be buyers... but that would necessitate using the word without the '-ated' which is what bugged me in the first place.
I'm not a grammar teacher, I'm not an expert, I just know it's wrong. What have we left the marketers up to??? Slippery slope, indeed.
9:29 a.m.
posted by tre
.:Monday, June 19, 2006:.
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Special
I got two international phone calls in two days, one from the UK, one from China. Can you feel the global love, people? Yay, international phone calls!
12:53 p.m.
posted by tre
.:Wednesday, June 14, 2006:.
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My new favourite word:
FINAGLE
per Merriam-Webster definition:
Main Entry: fi·na·gle
Pronunciation: f&-'nA-g&l
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): fi·na·gled; fi·na·gling /-g(&-)li[ng]/
Etymology: perhaps alteration of fainaigue (to renege)
transitive senses
1 : to obtain by indirect or involved means
2 : to obtain by trickery
intransitive senses : to use devious or dishonest methods to achieve one's ends
- fi·na·gler /-g(&-)l&r/ noun
12:45 p.m.
posted by tre
.:Friday, June 02, 2006:.
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I'm going to BelizeYes it's true. With my boyfriend. In December. We bought the airline tickets and everything. Now we have to figure out where we are going to stay. And what, exactly, we are going to do when we get there. It's tough because we (I) want to be (somewhat) comfortable but am willing to spend more money on activities and less on accommodation. And not have to compromise security (e.g. getting luggage/cameras/stuff stolen or dropped in a river or something). No mai tai cocktails served by cabana boy waiters on the beach, nor topless palm frond wavers for us. Nope. We are even going camping. On a reef. Check it out.  
Since we decided to go, and having bought the tickets already - leaving the other stuff to chance is somewhat terrifying for me (some people can attest to my anal tendencies with regards to the word 'itinerary'). All we know so far is that we are doing one week in the jungle doing river tours, hiking, looking for jaguars n stuff, and the other week we are at the beach. Other than Glovers Reef, I'm not sure where. Caye Caulker or Ambergris Caye? Or one of the lesser known cayes? Oof. My brain hurts.
I've already had a nightmare that our return flight was cancelled and we were gonna be stuck in Dallas for Christmas.
4:41 p.m.
posted by tre
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copyright? what copyright? (2005)
guess what?
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