Buy That Dispatcher A Dictionary

[radioscan]

3:43 PM on the Montgomery County system the dispatcher
on County Fire tg 13232 made three separate dispatches two
to a Trotwood Medic and one to Harrison Township for mutual aid
to an "elderly man, possible stroke, combative and disorientated".

Disorientated?????

There is no such word! The proper word is "disoriented".

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/Disorientated



.........And he used it in all three dispatches...Good Lord!
I can understand, misspeaking, God knows I'm known
to do it from time to time, but three times in row is not misspeaking.

I think the Montgomery County powers that be need to send him back through a remedial class on English.


Mark

 

[jerk]

3:43 PM on the Montgomery County system the dispatcher
on County Fire tg 13232 made three separate dispatches two
to a Trotwood Medic and one to Harrison Township for mutual aid
to an "elderly man, possible stroke, combative and disorientated".

Disorientated?????

There is no such word! The proper word is "disoriented".

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/Disorientated



.........And he used it in all three dispatches...Good Lord!
I can understand, misspeaking, God knows I'm known
to do it from time to time, but three times in row is not misspeaking.

I think the Montgomery County powers that be need to send him back through a remedial class on English.

Mark

From take our word web site: From Will Wagner:

Well, it has happened yet again. When I left the medical profession, I had hoped to escape the use (or is that mis-use) of the word disorientated. Use of this word seems to be extremely prevalent among nurses, but most everyone else uses the proper term disoriented. Yet today someone commented to me "[Being caught in an undertow] was very disorientating." Looking it up in the dictionary, I did find a comment under disorientate that lists it as a transitive verb with usage dating back to 1704. However the definition is simply "disorient" (which according to my dictionary dates to around 1655 from the French désorienter.) and is further defined as we know the word. Am I wrong in being annoyed by this?

From Stephen Pitts:

Automobile instruction manuals used to be really poorly written. The annoying thing I best remember is the instruction to depress the emergency brake in certain circumstances. (Is that the opposite of press?) I suspect they hire serious wordsmiths these days, because these manuals now tend to be models of verbal efficiency and graphic clarity.

Lawyers, mostly, have brought us clearer automobile users' manuals.

Here's another useless syllable: orientate. At least this one doesn't provoke uncertainty.

From Herman Wissenberg:

Longer-than-necessary-words: to orientate instead of to orient.

From Rob Ambrose:

How about disorientate, disorientated? Or the unfortunately becoming more popular preventative for preventive?

In times like these we turn to the excellent H.W. Fowler's The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (third edition, edited by R. W. Burchfield) for a decision. He examines the words' etymologies (they both derive from the French desorienter, as Will Wagner points out). They both followed the same path to their present-day meanings, which are identical. In the end, Fowler says that the two words are equally interchangeable. One may find that orient is more common in the U.S., while orientate appears more frequently in the U.K., but they are still equal in meaning and correctness.

So for what it's worth. He may have been a nurse or is one...
AL

 

[radioscan]

Thanks for the insight, this became more interesting than I thought possible.

From hearing it, it just did not sound right coming across the radio.
That is the first time I have ever heard that word used.

 

[n4voxgill]

Disoriented is a word, is in my dictionary and has been in common use for many years when describing mental state.

 

[scanjunkie]

WHOA! Now I'm totally discombumbulated!!

 

[mtindor]

How about 'administrate' or 'nucular'? Nucular is _not_ a word - or at least never used to be. Nuclear is so commonly misprounced now that nucular has become somewhat 'acceptable' out of necessity (can't teach old dogs new tricks) - http://www.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Nucular

What's worse is when you hear this out of presidents, educators, and those with various degrees - You know, those people who we all would expect to be better versed.

Then again, my mom, bless her heart, says 'ibeprofen' and 'mammiogram' rofl!

Mike

 

[radioscan]

Disoriented is a word, is in my dictionary and has been in common use for many years when describing mental state.

I should hope so!

 

[rdale]

Disoriented is a word, is in my dictionary and has been in common use for many years when describing mental state.

True - but that's not the word being discussed here.

 

[squad33]

words

Hooked on Foniks werked fer me lol..

Some dispatchers do mess up from time to time. It is funny to hear it. Sometimes I wonder what the guys in the rigs are thinking hearing this stuff.

 

[n4voxgill]

you can take the correct word, add a little local drawl to it and then have someone whose ears don't pick up everything and end up receiving something different than was sent. After 35 plus years in the business I find it hard to believe that if he is saying as described that he has not heard the jokes about his wording several times.

 

[Mylan]

Since you listen to this dispatcher all the time have you made the assumption that the dispatcher really thought that the proper word was disorientated or was he just messing around?

The question I have is: does the same dispatcher that was disorientated in his speaking seem to do an otherwise good job at dispatching? I mean it's not like he said: "elderly man, possible stroke, combative and avulsing". I'm sure both companies that he dispatched knew what was meant and if sombody had a problem with his dialect they would wage a complaint to have his choice of words corrected (or just laugh it off to themselves)....

 

[16b]

The whole world of dispatcher-isms makes me laugh.

I heard a guy who would, when time checking a transmission, precede every time in the morning with "oh", like "oh eight thirty" for 0830. That's standard pronunciation, but when he got to times like 1025 or 1113, he would say "oh ten twenty five" and "oh eleven thirteen". Duh!

I think somebody corrected him on it eventually, 'cause I haven't heard him do it in a while.

 

[Mylan]

yeah that might actually get annoying