words most often used incorrectly

[bolophonic]

Wow, you're triggered over that YEARS later, guess I should be proud to have enlightened some.
If it helps, you're not the only one.

Some people take exception to the silliest things & then hold onto it forever

I think you might be using the word "triggered" incorrectly.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

My posts trigger you to bring up that very old celebrity names issue you seem to have.
It's absolutely the correct usage.

 

[bolophonic]

My posts trigger you to bring up that very old celebrity names issue you seem to have.
It's absolutely the correct usage.

I'm not sure why the mere mention of it has triggered all this reaction.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

You trolled & won, good day to you!
Someone somewhere must be proud...

 

[D M C]

nobody commentates.

I do. Been doing it for years. I just commentated to the wife about this very thing. She commentated right back to me. Been commentating to each other for years like we were newlyweds.

Life is good.

 

[Tom Bomb]

Who's on first.

 

[HaphAsSard]

Commentator is just basically wrong, but just by popular of it greatly eclipses correct usage. It's one that even the dictionary gives up on, but just using what you were taught in 3rd. grade- A dictator dictates, a commentor comments, nobody commentates.

Therein lies your problem: in 3rd grade they don't tell you the whole story (and rightly so).

Your explanation only applies to "commentater", which can't be a word because, indeed, "to commentate" isn't either: the English native "-er" agent suffix is added to the base form of the word ("loan" -> "loaner") with the opportune spelling adjustment in written form ("love" -> "lover", "ship" -> "shipper").
However, "commentator", with an "o", is an originally Latin word, sporting Latin agent suffix "-or", which worked (in Latin) by being added to the supine (a sort of verbal noun) form of a verb: commentari (="to comment"), sup. commentatum (roughly ="the commenting") -> commentator (="one who comments"). The word was borrowed into English wholesale, and its existence in your language doesn't depend on "to commentate" (not) being there.

There are, in fairness, complicating factors:
1) while some English verbs ultimately derive from Latin verbs in present/infinitive form (Lt. convenio, convenire -> Eng. "to convene"), others were borrowed from the perfect participle/supine form (Lt. dictare, p.p. dictatus/-a/-um, sup. dictatum -> Eng. "to dictate")
2) some Latin verbs were intensive forms of other verbs, built upon the supine of the latter: commentari itself was one (of comminisci, sup. commentum), as was dictare (of dicere, sup. dictum);
the above explains the apparent repetition of (pastness, or patiency -inspiring) -t-'s, but also the fact that "dictator" superficially appears to be the agent noun of "dictate", and to have been formed by simply appending "-or" to it: if dictare had been borrowed as "to dict" in English, which it happens to have not, that equation wouldn't work now.
Finally,
3) the Latin suffix "-or" is sometimes applied in English, in lieu of native "-er", to verbs that are recognised as Latinate, directly to their base form (i.e. just as Germanic "-er" works): "survivor", "resistor", "licensor". This inconsistent practice – possibly, in part, influenced by French suffix "-eur", itself derived from Latin -at-or but with no trace left of -t- (typical of the supine form of many verbs as we've seen) due to historical phonetic erosion – disrupts the above-described pattern where English native, still productive "-er" and Latin fossilised "-or" attach to verbs differently;
4) you guys pronounce those two bastids the same!
(Usually, that is: I'm aware of "sensor" being pronounced "sense or" by some, notably on Star Trek... "Bailor" too.)

 

[HaphAsSard]

Oh, yeah, and another complicating factor:
some verbs, English or otherwise, are back-formations, created by removing the ending of a noun. E.g., "communication" (etymologically a nomen actionis of Lt. communicare, containing a -t- like our -ator) was borrowed into English earlier than "to communicate", and may well have been derived by it: no wonder that "communicator" (attested later still) appears to be "communicate" + "or".
Similarly, French sculpter (="to sculpt") replaced earlier sculper (Lt. sculpere) and its -t- was very probably influenced by the agent noun sculpteur. (Lt. sculptor, from the supine sculptum).

 

[Tom Bomb]

Mentor Very interesting — adaptor's adapting. Debtor's indebted spectator's spectating. Guaranteed guarantors solicit solicitors collecting collectors inspecting inspectors who hector Hector.

 

[HaphAsSard]

"communication" (...) was borrowed into English earlier than "to communicate", and may well have been derived by it

[Ugh: "and", "it" should actually read "which", "the former".
(I miss being able to edit my posts for weeks... )]

Mentor

That's an interesting one (besides the fact it is usually pronounced "ment or", instead of "menturr/mentuh"), being originally a name (albeit one that contains an Indo-European root meaning "mind"): Mentor is Telemachus's teacher in the Odyssey. Later it became a noun in English and also a verb ("to mentor", but one might instead have come up with the denominative back-formation "to ment"...) and the antonym "mentoree" with its perhaps more common alternative "mentee".

 

[IamGroot]

English vowel pairs ie and ei. Absolutely no consistency.

In Germany, they are orderly and have rules:
Ei = i
Ie = e.

Wasn't that easy .

 

[Pacman]

That's an interesting one (besides the fact it is usually pronounced "ment or", instead of "menturr/mentuh"), being originally a name (albeit one that contains an Indo-European root meaning "mind"): Mentor is Telemachus's teacher in the Odyssey. Later it became a noun in English and also a verb ("to mentor", but one might instead have come up with the denominative back-formation "to ment"...) and the antonym "mentoree" with its perhaps more common alternative "mentee".

This one drives me nuts. "Mentee" is just made up. The word is protoge

 

[dave64o]

I really have to stop reading this thread. My blood pressure goes up to dangerous levels every time I pop in here!

 

[HaphAsSard]

This one drives me nuts. "Mentee" is just made up. The word is protoge

I'm a bit of a neologist myself, but most of my peers don't appear to have been duly minted before themselves started coining.