Fractured "factorized"

HallsofIvy said:
I simply cannot bring myself to say "factorized" instead of the simpler "factored"!
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I was thinking the same thing, despite having seen "factorised" many times. But then I thought, "factorize" follows standard rules for forming a verb, while "factor" as a verb is what I call a "verbed noun", which I dislike in other areas (e.g. "friending", "Googling"). Why don't we call dividing "quotienting", or multiplication "producting"? (Don't ask me about "timesing", which is a real abomination.) On the other hand, this practice of verbing has a long history in English, and not only in America (look it up!).
 
HallsofIvy said:
I have always thought that "factorize" and "factorizing" were "Britishisms"
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If you use an "s", then they are (though "factorize" is in my American dictionary without comment, along with "factor" as a verb). On the other hand, you could say that the verb "factor" is an Americanism. I'm not sure which came first, or where, though.

And it just occurred to me that "factor out" can't be replaced by "factorize out" (I think), so that verb form may be needed everywhere.
 
The one term that gets under my skin is:

conversating

However, 'Conversate' has been used in English writing for almost 200 years (according to Merriam-Webster). But MS_Word red-lines it!!

Why not just "talking"? May be people just want to sound super-literate (sophisticated?).
 
I've never heard of "conversating"; my dictionary lists it as "nonstandard", and calls it a back-formation from "conversation", first used in 1811 (maybe standard then, or more likely always nonstandard). Maybe you live among nonstandard people ... like most of us, just in different ways.

There is a standard word "conversing"; but language changes constantly, and words that were once standard, or at least common, go out of favor, and others that were once frowned upon become standard.
 
I finally got it all clear in my head. Subhotosh is a nonstandard person.
 
Jomo said:
I finally got it all clear in my head. Subhotosh is a nonstandard person.
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Jomo

If you think anyone here is a standard person, you must have spent your entire life with some very weird types.
 
JeffM said:
Jomo

If you think anyone here is a standard person, you must have spent your entire life with some very weird types.
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Yes, I have. And they were from another world, called Brooklyn.
 
HallsofIvy said:
I have always thought that "factorize" and "factorizing" were "Britishisms"
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I don't refer to a "flashlight" as a "torch." If a British person were to ask me
to turn on a torch and hold it by the side of his head so he could see, his face
would be burnt beyond recognition.
 
That explains it. I lived in N
Jomo said:
Yes, I have. And they were from another world, called Brooklyn.
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I understand now. I lived in NYC for four solid years but do not recollect ever getting out of the protection of a vehicle containing pure Manhattan air within the confines of Brooklyn. That made it difficult to get to know the natives, and I never perused the anthropological literature on that part of the world. But I must admit that the natives of Morningside Heights had their oddities. One was that they were convinced that people living in Fort Lee needed that fortress as a defense against the Iroquois.
 
In US we don't drive trucks on sidewalk..

In GB, they do not drive lorry on footpath.....
 
lookagain said:
If a British person were to ask me
to turn on a torch and hold it by the side of his head so he could see, his face
would be burnt beyond recognition.
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A little extreme!

Us Brits also say "petrol" instead of "gas". If you had just ruined my Daniel Craig good looks ? with your torch, and then asked me to fill your car with gas, I'd use two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen and step back to wait for the kaboom as you spark the ignition :)
 
lookagain said:
I don't refer to a "flashlight" as a "torch." If a British person were to ask me
to turn on a torch and hold it by the side of his head so he could see, his face
would be burnt beyond recognition.
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C. S. Lewis:
"I've left my new torch in Narnia!"
 
Dr.Peterson said:
Look it up! …
… not everyone agrees …
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I'd looked it up, quite some time ago. I appreciate the update, however. (Next time, I'll say what I think people ought to use, instead.)

By the way, did you notice that your reference uses a lower-case 'g', in most of their entries and examples?

… I'm trying to respect the trademark …
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I can't think of a good reason to do that.

?
 
HallsofIvy said:
I have always thought that "factorize" and "factorizing" were "Britishisms"
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Ahh no, us Brits would write "factorise" or "factorising"! The words "factorize" and "factorizing" are American ?

I'm thinking back a long time, but I think that factorising was a word used in my early education. I'm pretty sure that higher level teachers/ university lecturers mostly used the words factor/ factoring.

Dr.Peterson said:
And, no, I don't use a torch to search for things.
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But do you use a handheld light that actually flashes? The battery technology hasn't mandated this limitation for a long time. But I guess "flashlight" is far more up-to-date than the origins of the word "torch"!
 
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