"Oriented" vs. "orientated"

Question

What are the origins of the word orientated?

As far as I know, the correct spelling is oriented and orientated is not an alternative spelling but an error that is in common use.

Is it for example more commonly used in a certain country or by a certain people? Is there a reason for people choosing to say or write orientated instead of oriented?

+1 - I always get irritated when I hear "orientated" because I don't think it's a real word. — Mark Henderson, Feb 09 '11 at 02:53
I added the British English answer below. It looks like the question is already tagged as a British/American English difference. — ukayer, Feb 09 '11 at 04:00
Orientated is very common in U.S. military usage. If you're hearing it there, give up any hope of correcting it. — J.T. Grimes, Feb 09 '11 at 19:27
When we have a word-difference between US and UK, how can we get our commenters not to call those on the other side stupid or ignorant? — GEdgar, Jan 20 '12 at 14:57
@BoofusMcGoofus - There are quite a few words commonly heard in the U.S. military that a person should be embarassed to utter in polite company. While not high on the list, this one would certainly be on it. — T.E.D., Aug 27 '12 at 13:58
Canadian here, and orientated sounds ridiculous to me, though it now seems I will have to learn to accept it. "Okay, where are we? Let's get out the map and orient ourselves." "She began a new job on Monday, and spent the rest of the week orienting herself to the new office and its procedures." Do these sound strange to UK people? To me orientate sounds as strange as the little Victorian skirts covering chair legs look. — Chellspecker, Sep 23 '15 at 00:41
How can we get people to stop calling English British English or UK English. It's incorrect as the rest of the UK each has its own language. — Eoin, Jun 13 '20 at 13:18
you ask about common use by certain people or certain countries. I have a population of ESL speakers for you: Germans/Germany. In German, the word is "orientieren/orientiert", and people do the easy thing and port their vocabulary, hence "orientate/orientated". I also think some people go for it because it sounds more convoluted (first order approximation of sophistication). — Christoph Rackwitz, Dec 08 '21 at 09:34

score 86 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

86

People say orientated because they hear the word orientation and think that's the verb made from it. It's called a "back-formation". (See Why are "colleagues" becoming "work colleagues"?). Orientated is accepted as an alternate by most dictionaries I've seen.

To orient something comes from the medieval practice of building cathedrals so that the apse, the part of the building that contained the altar, would be on the eastern side (hence orient).

(I suppose if they screwed up and got it the other way around the architects just shrugged and said, "Well, occidents will happen.")

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

Community

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answered Feb 09 '11 at 02:12

Robusto

151,571

Does that imply that it is a valid alternative to "oriented"? – Tom Ravenscroft Feb 09 '11 at 02:16
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It is accepted, yes. I've edited my answer to include that information. But it sounds a bit awkward and you shouldn't be surprised if educated people smirk or try to correct you for using it. – Robusto Feb 09 '11 at 02:19
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I wouldn't be. I'm usually the one smirking and correcting the people who use it. – Tom Ravenscroft Feb 09 '11 at 02:32
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You get +1 for the pun alone. – Kosmonaut Feb 09 '11 at 02:45
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THWACK! (I'd downvote you for the pun, except I'm still chuckling.) – Marthaª Feb 09 '11 at 03:44
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@Robusto. Also, "In the Middle Ages many maps, including the T and O maps, were drawn with East at the top" – Alain Pannetier Φ Apr 08 '14 at 08:25
After reading this post, I feel compelled to link to difference between “alternate” and “alternative” :-) – cmbuckley Oct 04 '14 at 09:37

score 29 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 07 '14 at 21:03

29

Orientate is standard in British English, you orientate something when you point it in a particular direction, hence orientated. In American English, you orient something, hence oriented.

englishplus.com/grammar suggests it is more widely accepted in the UK than in the US but should be avoided in formal writing. I found similar comments at wordwizard.com. I don't have the tools to do the formal statistical analysis, but growing up in the UK I don't think I ever heard anyone say the shorter form, hence my assertion that it is standard. I should probably have said more common in British English, and would love to see the stats if anyone can provide them.

edited Apr 07 '14 at 21:03

Martin F

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answered Feb 09 '11 at 03:59

ukayer

2,382

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Care to back this up with evidence? Personally I find "orientated" quite irritating. oxforddictionaries.com defines "orientate" simply as "another term for orient" and gives its origin as a back-formation from "orientation", as Robusto said. – John Bartholomew Feb 11 '11 at 03:13
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@John http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000245.htm suggests it is more widely accepted in the UK than in the US but should be avoided in formal writing. I found similar comments here http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?t=6986. I don't have the tools to do the formal statistical analysis, but growing up in the UK I don't think I ever heard anyone say the shorter form, hence my assertion that it is standard. I should probably have said more common in British English, and would love to see the stats if anyone can provide them. – ukayer Feb 11 '11 at 05:53
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@John,ukayer: According to Google Books, on the American corpus *oriented* is about 60 times more common than *orientated. But if you follow that link and switch to the British corpus, you'll see that it's only about 5 times more common in the UK. So orientate* still a long way from being "standard", but it's over 10 times more "acceptable" to Brits than Americans (and it's fine by me :) – FumbleFingers Apr 07 '14 at 18:05
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@FumbleFingers: It's still a minority representation in the UK, by far. – Robusto Dec 06 '16 at 02:16
@Robusto: Not so much "by far" back in the 60s/70s when I would have been getting familiar with the usage (I charted orient[at]ed towards** there, to screen out misclassified AmE texts). I upvoted your answer years ago because it's "correct", but I also upvoted this one because I personally prefer the longer version / invented verb myself (sod "correct"! :) – FumbleFingers Dec 06 '16 at 16:12
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Don't think it's standard in British English... at least not in books. Check out google's ngrams data on on British English oriented vs orientated: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=oriented%2Corientated&year_start=1920&year_end=2008&corpus=18&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Coriented%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Corientated%3B%2Cc0 – JasonWoof Aug 28 '19 at 22:33
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@AndyT ahh, thanks for figuring that out and splainin'! Also deleting. – JasonWoof Oct 31 '19 at 04:22

score 6 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 28 '12 at 18:28

As others have mentioned, the existence of the two forms oriented and orientated is one of the many differences that American English has from British English.

I have noticed this in American television programmes where American people have used the alternatives orient and oriented. This has always stood out as different and odd to me. Not only to me. It has been noticed by relatives when I watch television with them. They have commented on how different and odd this sounds to them as British people. They, like me, had not heard it until quite recently, in American television programmes.

It's different and odd because this is not normal in the UK. In all my life, I have only heard fellow British people use the words orientate and orientated. This is what I learnt, as a child.

My personal experiences are confirmed by the following dictionary entry for orientate, which mentions “(US orient)”: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/orientate_1?q=orientate

To me, the verb, orient, sounds decidedly odd and I was totally unaware of its existence (as a verb) and its usage in the US until today. Glad you found a reliable reference to back up your "orientate" usage. — Mari-Lou A, Jul 22 '13 at 22:43
@Mari-LouA and Tristan, I agree completely, and I wish the various commentators who say how irritated they are by this word would accept that that is not evidence for it being 'wrong'. If I hadn't read this post first I would have assumed 'orientate' was the older term which had been shortened to 'orient' in AmE - rather like Robusto saying 'as an alternate' when the proper word is 'alternative.' I think :) — Mynamite, Apr 07 '14 at 19:42

score 4 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 28 '12 at 17:00

4

Orientated is easier to pronounce in British English. Try to say it in an accent (real or otherwise).

Oriented. The t sound drops off too fast because of the word ending.
Orientated. Both t sounds are emphasized because they form the sound tayt and demand to be articulated.

edited Aug 28 '12 at 17:00

MetaEd

28,488

answered Aug 27 '12 at 01:18

guy smiley

91

2

Can people please explain their downvotes... if this is correct (which it very well may be), it is useful as it helps explain why the usage of orientated may be more prevalent in British English. – zooone9243 Sep 10 '14 at 01:26
I don't know why, but it really is easier to say - a brit. – Tobi Jun 02 '17 at 02:05

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 21 '11 at 14:13

3

I'm Canadian and have only started hearing "orientated" recently. It sounds awful to my ears and back-formed as if someone is trying to sound smart.

answered Feb 21 '11 at 14:13

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 20 '12 at 12:20

3

Apparently customer-oriented is more used than orientated. Check out Wording: http://en.bab.la/wording/

With the question "be customer ?" and oriented scores higher than orientated.

answered Jan 20 '12 at 12:20

Jøhn Barre

31

"Oriented" vs. "orientated"

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