A Word, Please: Use ‘preventative’ if you like, or condense by two letters
Which is right: preventive or preventative?
That’s the kind of question I get all the time, and these queries always make me smile. They’re based on assumptions that strike me, after 13 years of writing about grammar, as quaint bordering on adorable.
The main assumption is that one form must be right and the other wrong — painting a rosy picture of a black-and-white world where any choice, from political party to mustard-versus-mayonnaise, has a single, knowable, correct answer. Adorable.
But a question like “Preventive or preventative?” contains yet another assumption, this one perhaps even more precious: the belief that there’s some wise someone out there calling the shots and laying down the rules.
Au contraire. When you learn your way around the language and get to know the authorities who write the rule books, you discover that these nameless, faceless icons of wisdom and judgment are no better than anyone else at getting their act together.
Open up Garner’s Modern American Usage, turn to the entry on “preventative” and you’ll see this: “The strictly correct form is ‘preventive’ (as both noun and adjective), though the corrupt form with the extra internal syllable is unfortunately common.... In modern print sources, ‘preventive’ is about five times as common as ‘preventative,’ a needless variant.”
Sounds good, right? A clear answer. A little contextual perspective. Some sense of proportion via the word “strictly.” If you didn’t know better, you would just take this as an answer and be on your merry way.
But if you did know better, you’d check a second usage guide, say Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. Here’s what you’d find: “The critics have panned ‘preventative’ for over a century, preferring its shorter synonym ‘preventive’ in spite of the fact that both words have been around for over 300 years and both have had regular use by reputable writers. Here is the basic premise behind the objections: If two similar adjectives are derived from the same verb, then one of them must be in some way inferior to the other, and the likely culprit is the longer one. But the only real difference in status between these two words is that ‘preventative’ is much less common than ‘preventive.’”
Our first source says “preventive” is correct. The second says that the first guy, along with anyone else who has a horse in this race, is wrong.
That’s the kind of guidance that leaves you in need of more guidance. So where else might you turn? Why, the dictionary, of course. There’s just one problem. There is no “the” dictionary. In fact, there’s not even a “Webster’s dictionary.”
The name Webster is controlled by no one. It’s used by multiple publishers in the titles of multiple competing dictionaries that often contradict one another.
The two dictionaries most used by news media, book and magazine publishers demonstrate this. AP style, used by newspapers, defers to Webster’s New World College Dictionary for matters not covered in the style guide. Chicago style, used by book publishers, uses Merriam Webster’s Collegiate. These two dictionaries disagree on a lot of matters.
They do, however, agree on “preventative” — sort of. Webster’s New World says that “preventative” is a “variant” of “preventive.” Merriam Webster’s has a different way of discounting “preventative”: It lists its definition as simply “preventive.” If you want more than that, you have to consult the entry for the shorter word.
The subtext is that both dictionaries consider “preventive” the standard form, as established by centuries of usage. That means that “preventive” is better if you value opinions like these. But if you don’t, the longer form is also acceptable.
JUNE CASAGRANDE is author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at [email protected].