I dont worry too much about spelling, not using the correct spelling of a word like their and there bothers me only a little, and I barely know a verb from a noun but I hate it when people use non-words. 3 or 4 times in the past week I have heard the word "disorientated". Now is that a real word or not? I just searched online and found both disorientated and disoriented.

Does anyone have a real dictionary, the type made from paper, that they can look it up? I need to know before I tell off someone who should know better. Though it took me years to get her to say Vietnamese instead of Vietmanese,

Disoriented.

I get annoyed when people replace nothing, with nothink. It really disorientates me somethink bad.

Like when people are selling a car on epay or wherever they tend to say 'When i BROUGHT the car' etc.
It is spelt 'B O U G H T' not Brought!!
They may have 'brought it home' after they Bought it!

My 1964 Oxford English Dictionary lists "disorientate" but *not* "disorient" (although the latter is [according to the Porter algorithm] the stem of the word, and if you add back common suffixes to the stem, one possibility is "disoriented").
My 1966 (Chicago) Webster's lists neither but recognises both "orient" and "orientate" as verbs, to which one could, presumably, prefix a "dis".

In any case, these words have a very particular meaning of placing a lodestone on an altar at other than the correct angle. This might be useful in some, limited, circumstances. A more generic word for "to confuse, entangle; embroil" is "to embrangle" and it has a lovely onomatopoeic ring to it, one becomes embrangled rather than disoriented/disorientated. The word is nearly archaic, but could do with a revivavl.

hth

...revival

oh ffs really you need to get outmore to the big smoke big feller!!!

I edit the Club Veedub magazine Zeitschrift, so much of my spare time is spent in fixing the spelling and grammar of the articles and stories we get.

Lots of people seem to have trouble with 'their', 'there' and 'they're'. My Australian concise Oxford lists both 'disorientate' (it says 'see disorient'), and disorient, which has the expansion 'disorientation'.

But most of the problems seem to be not the words, but the way they are used. 'I done this' and 'we done that' really annoys me. It's 'we DID this'.

I hate the way people still spell VOLKSWAGON after 54 years in Australia.

Quote:

Originally posted by h oh ffs really you need to get outmore to the big smoke big feller!!!

Ok, while we are onto the English language and it's grammer which one of these is correct..........."I will try and do it" or "I will try to do it" thats one that I often notice, but then I've got bugger all else to do

I can not write a story or spell for shit as some of you may have noticed when ready some of my replies, sometimes they do not make since to me
But I AM 42 Years old and run a small business , I have no brains and happy with out them , thats why I have 6 beetles no brains

my fave... can i arsk you something.. people do it all the time
i was brought up asking something not arsking
why o why

Quote:

Originally posted by amazeer Quote: Originally posted by h oh ffs really you need to get outmore to the big smoke big feller!!! i have a daughter who is desperate to get into a selective high school... she at least needs to know how to speak the language, even if these days we arent required to spell it.

h.... i think you mean "Arks you sumfink" :-) & yeah i hate it too

& Modulus,,, "Embrangle"--> i very much like it :-) & "onomatopoeic" ,,, now that one takes the cake,,, i really love that one :-)

Fanks :-)

Quote:

Originally posted by Jay_1965vw Quote: Originally posted by donn Ok, while we are onto the English language and it's grammer which one of these is correct..........."I will try and do it" or "I will try to do it" thats one that I often notice, but then I've got bugger all else to do Technically it should be 'try to' not 'try and' Oh.. and since we're here... 'its grammar' not 'it's grammer' Apostrophes and their insertion when not required is my pet hate...

I have many pet hates when it comes to spelling. Volkswagon is definitely one of them but another is 'specialty'. It should be 'speciality' and also when people pronounce "schedule' as 'skedule' and not the correct way 'shedule'. But to be fair we live in Oz not England so I suppose we get to choose plus anyone who knows me will probably realise I'm a cockney so pronunciation is not a point I should really dwell on BTW I spent many years in typesetting as a reader where the point of the job was to check for correct spelling and grammar.

I am also going to jump on this bandwagon. Firstly I will say that I am not the worlds best speller, but no punctuation in a sentence really P's me off (off - spelt with 2 F's). When reading a sentence and it all rolls into one, doesn't make sense to me. Other forums I have been on state that you must use full stops and no abbreviations. Sometimes with swear words you may need to abbreviate.

I'm 41 and a few years ago I didn't want to except when my son was at school that the plural of fish is fishes. This was a big No No when I went to school. Also it was always Steve and I, but now its me and Steve. The standards have definitely dropped.

Kevin

Oh.. and since we're here... 'its grammar' not 'it's grammer'
Orite, I'll back out now.

If you haven't noticed I can't stand when people are asked a question and they answer it with yeah no. What th. Please explain???????

And the ones who "must of done xyz" instead of "must have" " or "must've". Also seen on here quite a bit is THERE instead of THEIR or even THEY'RE. There's also the Yank (and even Poms) using "they got off of the train". Ah! Grumpy old teachers!!

DH

I find it amusing the amount of people who can't spell QANTAS.....they find it necessary to throw a "U" in there also QUANTAS.

One word I can never spell correctly without looking it up is DIARRHOEA. Even now it took me 5 minutes to find it in the dictionary. At least it isn't a word I use in a VW club magazine very much.

Occasionally I have a mental block with little words - was it 'once apon a time' or 'once upon a time'?

Here's two annoying mistakes in one sentence: "I NEVER DONE NOTHING." And what about Jack Gibson's famous quote, 'played good, done strong'.

I really hate the former Apple Computer slogan - THINK DIFFERENT. Argh! It should be THINK DIFFERENTLY.

Lee you should be educating the Americans in proper English, not slipping into their lazy habits. Be proud of windscreen, mudguard, colour, harbour etc. And yes, there's no such word as 'compleat'!

My pet hate in words here is a strange one - "Hazard a guess"

SURLEY it is "has at a guess" or "have as a guess"

Why the hell would it be "hazard"



Bigger idiots out there to worry about

'Impacting'. You know what I mean. 'Having an impact' anyone?

Does anyone speak German fluently?

I am told that VW's recent slogan, 'Das Auto' (the car) should be 'Der Auto', but I haven't done German since high school so I don't know. Anyway, surely 'Volkswagen - Das Auto' should translate as 'People's Car - The Car'. That really doesn't make sense!

And apparantly ordinary Germans hate VW's previous slogan - 'Aus Liebe zum Automobil', which roughly means 'for the love of the car', as its grammar is not proper German. Is this true?

And yes I hate the way Americanism are creeping into our language, via TV, movies and sport. Since when does Ricky Ponting have to 'step up to the plate'??

The one that really pisses me off is when, as I work in retail and answer the phone a lot, is when people say "listen", as in "Yeah, listen, I'm after a blah blah".
Do they think I'm not going to listen? So now I usually interject with "Yeah, listening".