Preventive vs Preventative

I try to take a simple approach to life and stick with simple words. I try to not go crazy with long, pretentious words, especially when a shorter word may actually be more effective and take less time to enter into the text.

A word that always bugged me when I actually worked for a living was 'preventative'. It was commonly used in government and contract documents to describe maintenance, 'preventative maintenance'. Why not just call it 'preventive maintenance' as shown in the above image.

'Preventive' is the base word, with 'preventative' having an extra syllable. Why waste time?

This blog post from 2007 addresses the issue exceptionally well, Preventive vs Preventative.

Ponder it the next time you're inclined to use 'preventative'; but then why would you. :-)
JD

PS - Original site for the above image is worth visiting when you have some time. BibliOdyssey