is it oriented or orientated?

Nurses General Nursing

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what words do you hear consistently mispronounced.....my pet peeve is when people wish to say oriented, as in alert and oriented, and they actually say orientated....where are they getting the extra a and t......

conversate instead of converse

Specializes in Med-Surg, Long Term Care.
Originally posted by pdmt

How about "fair-nix" instead of pharynx and "lair-nix" instead of larynx. And then there's always the asthma "exasperation".

Those bug me, too. (I had to think a while about the actual pronunciation of exacerbation-- kept getting tongue-tied-- when I saw exasperation there!) Also the prostate/prostrate and orient/orientate are annoying. There's one nurse from day shift I sometimes follow who says orientated. I wish I had the courage to just gently tell her the correct pronunciation. I know I'd rather know. (Husband sometimes corrects me and if I disagree and think my pronunciation is correct, we just haul out the dictionary.) :D

claudification instead of claudication (or is it the other way around??)

I had a nursing instructor who pronounced abdomen as abDOEmen. Made me want to laugh when she said it.

I watch a lot of HGTV and I hear almost all the designers pronounce the word 'height' like there is an 'h' on the end. As in 'heighth'. Drives me nuts.

Also, I had a friend who could not say the word 'fiscal'. She would call it the 'physical' year.

I think this one is just local. 'Walmart' and 'Kmart' pronounced 'Walmark' and 'Kmark'. This also drives me nuts.

Around these here parts it's Wal-Mart's and K-Mart's.

Makes me want to say,"Do you mean Wal-MarT?" lol

Mine is people wanting to use the telefoam instead of telephone........Oldtimers disease instead of Alzheimer's disease

The other morning when I was giving report to the oncoming shift, had a pt whose dx was hemoptosis (sp?) and I just couldn't say it for s***!!!!I really CAN speak...mouth and brain weren't connecting well (LOL) But...It had been the 12 hr shift from hades and...also had the worlds MOST demanding pt...I needed Roller Skates AND a jet propulsion pack!!!!

Oh yeah...When I hear people say that they are going to "Wal-marts" I just have to supress the urge to reply "How many Wal-marts are you going to today?"(LOL)

Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

sang-witch instead of sandwich, do you think the wicked witch of the west can sing in the right key?:D

These aren't necessarily related to nursing but make me cringe a little:

Pam"p"let instead of pam"ph"let

"Butt "naked instead of buck naked

Move to the Mid-west. Our Warter is pretty clean. You should also try one of our car-warshes. What amazes me is the phonetics, they spell it the same as they pronounce it.

Pet peeves: Libary, instead of library (my mother's downfall) and birfday (my father-in-law's downfall). I feel like saying "I goen down to da libary to reed bout human birf an all dat"

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