OT: dominate

by Requiem on Sep 5, 2006 12:27 AM CDT Comment 17 comments

Ok, I've seen it used on this site before....

But now I've seen it used on a poll at ESPN.com

Now, when the heck did dominate become an adjective?

I've looked at Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, and, heck, even UrbanDictionary.com and none of them references an adjective form for dominate.

Is this word usage occurring because people can't differentiate between a verb (dominate) and an adjective (dominant)?

It obviously can't be a misspelling of dominated, because that is pretty much the OPPOSITE meaning of dominant.

I don't get this.

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This is one of my biggest pet peeves

People who say "dominate" instead of "dominant".

I think it is because of stupid people who don't know the difference.

by austintxhorn on Sep 5, 2006 12:36 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Typo

In this case.

by Sharky on Sep 5, 2006 12:42 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Nah

A typo is a misplaced letter. A slipped finger, etc. When a word is completely replaced with a similar word, the author likely doesn't understand the difference.

Your Texas Rangers...laying the foundation for 2009!

by RangerMoto on Sep 5, 2006 12:51 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

No

It's a typo.

Nobody thinks dominate means dominant.

by Sharky on Sep 5, 2006 12:59 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

You'd

be surprised what some people think.

"If you are going to type stupid shit, you should at least spell it right." -trza

by thedirkatron on Sep 5, 2006 7:27 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm not a stupid guy, but now and then you can count me guilty. I got into it with some LSB n00b one time after using "fair" instead of "fare" or something like that. I know the difference between the two words but made the mistake, anyway. I've also caught myself making others. It just happens when you type something up quickly and maybe your attention is divided with, say, a baseball game on TV. In this case, a usage error is more like a typo than anything else.

That said, when a major website makes an error like that, there's a problem. These people are writing for a living and I imagine several people see the copy before it goes to "print".

Nobody cares about your fantasy or video game teams.

by Dustin on Sep 5, 2006 10:09 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

clearly bad grammar

for further evidence, see:
your/you're
its/it's (easily the most abused because people simply don't understand the difference)
they're/their/there
resigned/re-signed
too/to/two
than/then
discreet/discrete
complement/compliment
adding apostrophes to plural words

You could peruse this board and come up with 4 or 5 dozen more, I'm sure.

I attribute poor grammar (whether online or otherwise) more to laziness and apathy than to outright stupidity. Why use the properly contracted form when the shorter word will get your point across just fine? I've heard/read the argument that it's just the internet: "no reason to meticulously edit a post if it's just going to be on a blog somewhere." I don't buy that argument though. We should respect our language. Spend five extra seconds and check your spelling and grammar, people!

It's probably fairly obvious that this is one of my biggest pet peeves. But I suppose, if nothing else, it helps me weed out the scholars from the not-so-enlightened...

Your Texas Rangers...laying the foundation for 2009!

by RangerMoto on Sep 5, 2006 12:49 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

pet peeves

Me too. One guy on this blog actually told someone that he "showed ignorants" (although an "igno-rant" might be an apt term for what occasionally occurs around here. Patent!) This person rarely posts anything free of errors, nor mixes in a new paragraph, and, as a consequence, I'm never much interested in what he has to say. It's too annoying.

And that's too bad.

Macho, macho man. I want to be, a macho man.

by Brian Thomas on Sep 5, 2006 2:41 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

"loose" in place of "lose"...

...and "definately" in place of "definitely."

People who misspell those words should be sentenced to hard labor.

by Lucas on Sep 5, 2006 2:08 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Misspelled words

I don't really mind them, except when the misspelling causes the word to be another word which is used.

Thus, I don't really have as much of a problem with "definately" as I do with "loose" since "loose" is actually a word while "definately" is not.

I often get the feeling that some people (mainly teenagers) don't really know that there IS a difference between "loose" and "lose" (especially noting that they often call each other "loosers").

That being said, I can understand problems with apostrophes/punctuation, also, and thus don't mind them as much since it takes some definite thought to figure them out (plus, the it's/its exception to the possessive rule might throw people off).

But I can see having problems with the discreet/discrete, compliment/complement, etc. problems.

It's really hard to claim that "dominate" is a spelling problem since you're ADDING a letter which doesn't even belong and dropping one elsewhere. If someone wrote "dominent" or "dominat," I could see the argument for a spelling error.

Also, it's sad that at a major website, we have such a gross misuse of a word, assuming that's what it is. Those editors (I'm thinking they're very young as I rarely see these types of problems from the older generations) should be forced to write the word "dominant" 1,000 times on a white/chalk board, assuming "dominate" hasn't actually developed usage as an adjective.

Req

by Requiem on Sep 5, 2006 2:53 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs