Definition: preventive
Here is a small sample of the comments we have received from readers who are upset with preventative being used instead of preventive:
Have noticed it in some newspaper articles. Latest is sign at lubrication station saying preventative maintenance. Have complained, but no change.
Radio commercials using preventative which is wrong in me opinion
Fact: 'Preventate' is not a word. Fact: 'Preventative' is, therefore, also not a word. Opinion: You may be from Oklahoma if you deliberately use 'preventative' when you mean 'preventive.
Who ever came up with this word deserves a slow painful death.
Such complaints are nothing new; Ambrose Bierce, in his 1909 book Write it Right, offered the following brusque entry: “No such word as preventative.” Writing in 1870, Richard Grant White was somewhat more florid, and said that the use of this word was evidence “of an utter want of education and of a low grade of intelligence.”