Orient and orientate

[Thinking about usage.]

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today is orientate. A note on usage adapted from The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (1989) accompanies the word. Here is today’s note:

Orientate is a synonym of “orient,” and it has attracted criticism as a consequence. “Orient,” which dates from the early 18th century, is in fact the older of the two verbs — “orientate” joined the language in the mid-19th century. Both can mean “to cause to face toward the east” and, not surprisingly, they are related to the noun Orient, meaning “the East.” Both also have broader meanings that relate to setting or determining direction or position, either literally or figuratively. Some critics dislike “orientate” because it is one syllable longer than “orient,” but you can decide for yourself how important that consideration is to you. Personal choice is the primary deciding factor, although “orientate” tends to be used more often in British English than it is in American English.

I see two problems with Merriam-Webster’s commentary:

~ Casting a preference for orient as a matter of stinginess about syllables is a little misleading. That red, for instance, has one less syllable than orange is not a reason to prefer red. A better reason to prefer orient to orientate is that orientate is, as Garner’s Modern English Usage (2016) calls it, a “needless variant,” doing work that orient already does. Add a dis- and orientate sounds even more ungainly: “I felt disorientated in my new surroundings.”

~ The advice to “decide for yourself” between orient and orientate is, to my mind, wildly unhelpful. On what basis will you decide? What if you hold the mistaken belief that longer words make you sound more intelligent? To think of “personal choice” as “the primary deciding factor” seems to miss the point that your language is for another, for some listener or reader who will be weighing what you say or write. Will orientate strike that listener or reader as intelligent and sophisticated, or as merely pompous? Will it inspire respect for what you say, or will it leave your audience wondering why you can’t just say or write orient?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Usage supplements its discussion with sample sentences from writers “who obviously saw nothing wrong with orientate”: W.H. Auden, Aldous Huxley, Margaret Mead, Robert Morley, and others. Yes, and one of those writers (Morley) also saw nothing wrong with using the word Chinamen. In 2017, what Merriam-Webster fails to point out is that in British English, as in American English, orient is far more common than orientate. Here’s just one Google ngram to help make the point. Choosing orientate on either side of the Atlantic might mark a speaker or writer as something of an outlier.

NPR, sheesh

“I’m, like, a huge narcissist, so, like, let me get out there, basically.”

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Thirty-two questions

In The New York Times, Gail Collins presents “The Trump 100-Day Quiz," parts one and two.

On Duke Ellington’s birthday

Here’s a wonderful scene from the first part of Richard O. Boyer’s three-part profile “The Hot Bach” (The New Yorker, June 24, 1944). It is night. Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn (aka Sweepea, or more usually Swee’ Pea) are composing on a train:

“I got a wonderful part here,” Duke said to him. “Listen to this.” In a functional, squeaky voice that tried for exposition and not for beauty, Duke chanted, “Dah dee dah dah dah, deedle dee deedle dee boom, bah bah bah, boom, boom!” He laughed, frankly pleased by what he had produced, and said, “Boy, that son of a bitch has got a million twists.”

Strayhorn, still swaying sleepily in the aisle, pulled himself together in an attempt to offer an intelligent observation. Finally he said drowsily, “It's so simple, that's why.”

Duke laughed again and said, “I really sent myself on that. Would you like to see the first eight bars?”

“Ah yes! Ah yes!” Strayhorn said resignedly, and took the manuscript. He looked at it blankly. Duke misinterpreted Sweepea's expression as one of severity.

“Don't look at it that way, Sweepea,” he said. “It's not like that.”

“Why don't you reverse this figure?” asked Strayhorn sleepily. “Like this.” He sang shakily, “Dah dee dah dah dah, dah dee dah dah dah, boomty boomty boomty, boom!”

“Why not dah dee dah dah dah, deedle dee deedle dee dee, boom bah bah bah, boom?” Duke said.

“Dah dee dah dah dah!” sang Strayhorn stubbornly.

“Deedle dee deedle dee dee!” Duke answered.

“Dah dee dah dah dah!” Strayhorn insisted.

Duke did not reply; he just leaned eagerly forward and, pointing to a spot on the manuscript with his pencil, said, “Here's where the long piano part comes in. Here's where I pick up the first theme and restate it and then begin the major theme. Dah dee dah, deedle dee deedle dee, boom!”

The train lurched suddenly. Sweepea collapsed into a seat and closed his eyes. “Ah yes!” he said weakly. “Ah yes!”

Duke Ellington was born on April 29, 1899.

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[Boyer’s profile is reprinted in The Duke Ellington Reader, ed. Mark Tucker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).]

Recently updated

Mystery actor Now with an identification.

Library savings

Our public library has added a nice detail to the receipt that accompanies borrowed materials: “You just saved $47.00 by using your library. You have saved $47.00 since April 14, 2017.” Common practice maybe, but it’s new to me.

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Mystery actor

[Who? Click for a larger view.]

You may have seen her on television — dozens and dozens of times. Do you recognize her? Leave your best guess in the comments. If necessary, I will add a hint.

*

A hint: You may have seen her at the Stellar Employment Agency or in a sweltering apartment.

*

It’s been very quiet today. The mystery actor is Betty Garde, seen here as Wanda Skutnik in Call Northside 777 (dir. Henry Hathaway, 1948). Garde is probably best known to television viewers as Thelma, the maid in the Honeymooners episode “A Woman’s Work Is Never Done,” and as Mrs. Bronson in the Twilight Zone episode “The Midnight Sun.” “Dozens and dozens of times” was meant as a bit of misdirection: I was thinking of seeing that one Honeymooners episode again and again and again. “The chubby one’s gonna be trouble.”

More mystery actors
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

[Garner’s Modern English Usage notes that “support for actress seems to be eroding.” I’ll use actor.]

Recently updated

Review: Walks with Walser Now that I have the published book and an accurate page count.

Nomenclature

Elaine and I have a garden going, for the first time in many years. She is the brains of the operation, the planner and the planter. I do whatever she asks of me — hauling dirt, filling the watering can. We have been trying to figure out a name for my role in this project. Am I “the hired man,” or what?

Elaine came up with a fitting name today: sous-farmer.

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Dream jobs (Including soda jerk and sous-jerk)

Our alphabet and how it got that way

ABCDEFGHI_KLMNOPQRST_V_XYZ: from The American Heritage Dictionary, it’s a succinct account of the differences between the alphabet the Romans used (twenty-three letters) and our own.

I had to laugh when I began reading: ”As everyone knows, there are 26 letters. . . .” Well, not everyone. I recall a Great Moment in Teaching from the early 2000s, when I was explaining to a class that the Iliad and Odyssey had each been divided into twenty-four parts for the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet. In other words, the episodes had been lettered, not numbered. A hand went up: “How many letters are there in our alphabet?” I didn’t bat an eye: “Twenty-six.” Yes, this was in college.

When I told recounted this moment to Elaine, she suggested a different response, to be said in a kindly, speaking-to-a-child tone of voice: “You can count them yourself.”