4. Using “preventative” to mean “preventive”: I recall that once, while working for a dog culture magazine, we printed a strongly worded letter to the editor taking us to task for using the word “preventative” in lieu of “preventive.” After that, we eschewed the word “preventative,” and sure, we stopped getting letters about the word, but the change didn’t make us more correct. Now, there are plenty of people who will offer perfectly logical explanations for why they feel “preventive” is more correct than “preventative.” After all, you prevent something; you don’t “preventate” something. And preventive is the more common form in formal writing, at least in North America.
But “preventative” is considered a perfectly acceptaccble variantc of preventive, one that has been in use for centuries. Grammarist notes that preventive/preventative is just one of many -tive/-tative word pairs that remain inconsistently used, no matter how often the head linguistic honchos try to saddle them with rules.
Even though “preventative” is just as correct as “preventive,” many grammarians will counsel readers to avoid “preventative” as a preventive against pinging someone’s pet peeve.
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