- “Administer,” not “administrate,” is the verb form of “administration.” “Orient,” not “orientate,” is the verb form of “orientation.” “Reconcile,” not “reconciliate,” is the verb form of “reconciliation.” Be wary of verbs that end in “ate,” and look for shorter, stronger forms. Of course, many verbs ending in “ate” are correct, such as “create” and “castigate.”
- Even though a noun appears to be plural, it might take a singular verb. For example, branches of knowledge such as mathematics, physics, ethics, politics and social studies take singular verbs. For a good review of tricky plurals, check out this entry at englishplus.com.
Thanks for visiting. While you’re here, please look around the site. You can subscribe via e-mail or RSS feed. The tools to do so are at the top of the right-hand column. To share or retweet the entry, use the buttons below. You can follow me on Twitter: @peterfaur.