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

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
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    7 months ago

    “Disorientated” gets me. Why not save a few letters and use “disoriented”? You don’t orientate yourself to your environment, you orient yourself.

      • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Never thought about that. People frequently say orientate at my work (I am a stenographer) and it bothers me to no end, because it takes me longer to write orientate versus orient. But now it makes sense, British language.

          • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I dunno if I’ve heard someone say “What is your orient?” Usually more allow me to orient/orientate you to this map. I prefer orient because that’s just O-RNT in stenographer world. Orientate is O-RNT/TAEUT, with the slash representing a second stroke, so twice as much effort. I’m a low effort kinda person.

          • kase@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Btw, I don’t hear people say “orient” except as a verb, but I do sometimes hear “oriention” used the same way as “orientation.” Orientation is more common tho ¯⁠\⁠(⁠°⁠_⁠o⁠)⁠/⁠¯

      • deranger@lemmy.world
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        7 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
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            7 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 (irregardlessconversatepreventative), 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
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              7 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
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                7 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.world
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              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@lemm.ee
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          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.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      For me, it was the article describing walking into the propeller of a jet. Clearly someone didn’t read this over before clicking submit

      • shottymcb@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        It’s a turboprop plane, so a jet engine driving a propeller. Definitely sounds weird when phrased like that though.

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          It’s like how for awhile there you would hear the phrase “jet helicopter.” Meaning a helicopter powered by a turboshaft engine, like the Huey. You don’t hear that very often these days because there’s virtually no helicopters in significant service with reciprocating engines that aren’t made by Robinson.

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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      7 months ago

      Did George W Bush write this report? That sounds like a a made up word for when you can’t remember the actual word.

    • eardon@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      They’re padding the report just like someone writing a paper on a subject they don’t understand.

      They know it was their fault for not training her properly, but as typical they try to deflect blame to anyone else.

      It’s pretty well understood that financial reports of public companies that aren’t trying to hide something are easier to read than ones from companies that are trying to hide something. I think this is another example of that concept.