Why is it "commentator" and not "commentor"? Just a random thought while reading the Tony Snow story.

I thought commentating was the act or profession of making comments, and a comment is just a form of a statement.

Can you say somebody is "commentating"? That doesn't sound right, but it must be.

You can also say somebody is "commenting", though. So who knows?

A commentator doesn't make comments, he makes commentations.




Which is to say I dunno, Billz. It reeks of that same extra unnecessary syllable that people like to put into oriented so they sound as smart as cmanhatan4.

whatchoo talken about radcliffe? if i actually do this i would love to see examples, it's probably so retarded it's hilarious. i find that my posts are usually more filled with words like "ill" and "mad" rather than "orientated"

commentated is definitely a word.
orientated is definitely something retarded that i may or may not have said.

you used the word gauche yesterday.

I don't get it, I was essentially correct in my initial definition of the act of commenting according to Dictionary.com. It seems redundant to have the word commentation mean the act of commenting.

Commentation

\Com`men*ta"tion\, n. 1. The act or process of commenting or criticising; exposition. [R.]

The spirit of commentation. --Whewell.

2. The result of the labors of a commentator.

He was just trying to smarten up my Food Network thread.

i didn't even remember that. posts on obner definitely get lost in my short term memory very very quickly. and what's wrong with saying gauche? i guess in english it's entirely pretentious but seeing as how 95% of my daily communication is done in french it just seemed very natural to use the term.

Just giving you the examples you asked for. Gauche is a far cry from "ill" or "mad."

ah, that's where it was. we were discussing nose picking...lighten up. it was also kind of a play, using that term in a discussion on that. it's not a word i use in actual english conversation.

I feel like there's a huge disparity between how I sound on message boards and in real life. Here I'm much more of a douchebag.

Acutally, I understand this. I don't think I come off anything like I am in real life.

No, I mean thanks. I obviously shouldn't have taken your innocent example as an attack on my pretentiousness. It's far too apparent now that the way I perceive myself on this message board and the way that I am actually represented by my words are very very different things.

Wait, was the "ligthen up" directed at me?

If so, notice the wink (the wink! the wink!).

If not, carry on.

(silly message boards indeed)

Maybe Comentator is not to define someone that is making comments, rather, maybe it is a specific term that means announcers at sporting events or things of that nature. Maybe it is a term specifically designed for that profession and not semantically related to comment, commenting, etc.