Word of the Day

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Medevac

Why is it that some dictionaries record the inflected forms of the verb medevac as medevacing and medevaced instead of the more correct medevacking and medevacked? What happened to that rule that says that verbs ending in c add a k before suffixes starting with a vowel, like mimic, mimicking, mimicked, mimicker, etc.? I think Merriam Webster does a better job countenancing medevacking and medevacked, but it also lists medevacing and medevaced. Medevacing and medevacking have very similar numbers of ocurrences according to this, but medevaced (unfortunately) routs medevacked here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Slovo dne: é, pelo visto a minha hipótese só se confirma - palavras bem próximas das nossas, ainda que um pouco diferentes em significados, como 'exigency'.

Medevac! nossa! com k ou sem c, sinceramente, palavrinha mais... isso deve ter sido inventada por estadounidenses. Pelo menos, se eu for trabalhar por lá - 'inda que temporariamente - já saberei usar o termo =P