"...while others are instructed in their native language, English people aren't..." and the same applies to Americans... in spades.

It's all too true, BTW, that, in those inimitable words, America and Britain are two cultures separated by a common language.

If people would only READ books published before 1060 (OOPS ... I mean 1960, as Erik points out) rather than watching the "tube" we wouldn't have words such as "preventative" (clearly governmentspeak derived from reports generated by the gov-illiterati) finding their way into the dictionary. There is, of course, a word, "preventive" which means what "preventative" was intended to say. Pretty soon we will see a common saying quoted as "An ounce of preventation is worth a pound of curativeness."

I guess it's an outgrowth of, "If a little bit is good, then more is better." which I seriously doubt applies to syllables.

RE