Blog August 2013

Carlin had it right...

Posted On: August 01, 2013

When I first heard George Carlin talk about this it made perfect sense to me.  Pre, the most mis-used word in the English language; you see it all the time in print and hear in commercials:  Pre-heat; pre-register; pre-lit; pre-recorded; pre-board (I really like that one); pre-wired…and so on.  My favorite is when I heard on a TV commercial for an electric wheel-chair- “…if you pre-qualify…”  I love that line.  So would that mean that if I don’t ‘pre-qualify’…I can still ‘qualify’?  lol.  Afterall, pre-qualifying means that you have to qualify….before you qualify, right?  It’s a 2-step process.  lol. 

Sure…you can preview something and have a premier or be considered prehistoric and even list something as being ‘pre-owned’; although that’s just another term for USED.  Putting ‘pre’ in front of a word only complicates things. 

Gone forever are the days of keeping it simple.

by Rich Brennan

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