Stephanie Cosme, 32, was killed last year when she inadvertently walked into the rotating propeller of an aircraft in California

Stephanie Cosme, 32, was killed last year when she inadvertently walked into the rotating propeller of an aircraft in California

A US air force civilian contractor had become disoriented recording data at an airport in California last year when she walked into a jet’s rotating propeller and was killed, officials said on Friday.

In a statement outlining the findings of a report into the contractor’s death, the air force materiel command said that 32-year-old Stephanie Cosme was mortally injured on 7 September when she inadvertently walked into the rotating propeller of an MQ-9A that was parked at Gray Butte airfield.

  • deranger@lemmy.world
    64·
    8 months ago

    Still doesn’t make sense to me. There’s no need for the “tate”. She was disoriented, not properly oriented. Do you say “orientate” for the verb, or “orient”?

      • deranger@lemmy.world
        61·
        8 months ago

        It is not uncommon for words in English to have variants which are slightly longer than they need to be, and our collective response to these words is somewhat capricious; some of them make people Very Angry (irregardless, conversate, preventative), while others (commentator) seem to elicit little more than a shrug.

        Yeah, I take issue with all of these, including commentator, despite it being commonly used. Just say commenter. They’re commenting. I don’t care for all these extra taters.

        • Cypher@lemmy.world
          7·
          8 months ago

          Commentator is a better fit for grammar in general speech IMO.

          On Tuesday John Doe, a commentator for the local….

          On Tuesday John Doe, a commenter for the local…

          Commenter sounds like someone made a comment as opposed to commentator which sounds like a job title. At least to me.

          • deranger@lemmy.world
            41·
            8 months ago

            Fair enough, you make a point with that. It serves a function there, but I still contend the tate in orientate is superfluous.

        • DelightfullyDivisive@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          7 months ago

          IIRC, “irregardless” was added to more US dictionaries in the late 20th century. I had a coworker in the early 90s who would become viscerally angry when others would use it…so the rest of us would use it often.

    • franglais
      1·
      7 months ago

      There are many occasions when speaking another language (yes American English is a different language to British English imo) where you just have to say, “that’s how it is, it doesn’t make sense, but there we go”. The English took the word from the french désorienté, which means to turn away from the orient.