One of the things that I had often challenged people on was the use of the word ‘orientated’. I had always thought that it was a mispronunciation of the word ‘oriented’. I was therefore rather surprised to hear an Englishman use the word today. Finally did a check on the web and discovered that both words are correct although ‘orientated’ appears to be used more by the British and ‘oriented’ by the Americans. The Englishman in question does not use the word ‘oriented’.
For someone who is supposed to be able to speak the Queen’s English, this is rather embarressing. (Although I am certain that there is already a multitude of errors in my writing.)
For those who are interested, I found the above information at http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ori1.htm.
