Talk:administrate

I always thought that administrate was the incorrect verb form for administration or administrator with the correct one beeing administer. — This comment was unsigned.

http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0231069898&id=L2ChiO2yEZ0C&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=administrate&sig=RZ15GlNR-zBnHR71ZO3UK7tLdlA --Connel MacKenzie 07:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I likewise thought it incorrect, but rather than just rant I did a bit of research. It turns out that yes, "administer" well predates "administrate", but it's not new, dating back to the mid 16th century.

Mirriam Webster asserts that its etymology was directly from Latin in the 1650's, and that was probably true back then, but I suspect it more likely falls into the category of a recurrent neologism that keeps getting re-invented and squashed from time to time: people who've never heard the term before quite happily make it up for themselves after hearing "administration" or "administrator".

This being the age of the internet, however, I suspect it's not going to get squashed this time because the Netizenary are mainly young and thus not influenced or "corrected" by older folk. 06:06, 18 September 2014 (UTC)