This was pre-written

Pre-ordering seems to be the latest thing. It’s all the rage. The term ‘pre-ordering’ seems to have become a useful way for online retailers to prompt us to buy something before it’s available. DVDs, downloads, pants – you can pre-order them all. But whether it’s likely to arrive tomorrow or in six months’ time, aren’t we just ‘ordering’?

Imagine I’m in Costa and I ask for a coffee with hot milk. The chances are that my coffee hasn’t yet been made. I may even pay for it before it’s been manufactured and placed in my grateful little mitt. I asked for a coffee. I didn’t pre-ask for it. I ordered it and there wasn’t anything particularly ‘pre’ about it. How is it any different for a book that isn’t yet ready to be sent to me or an album that isn’t yet ready to download? All that matters to me is when I’m going to get it.

There are other abuses of this poor little prefix that upset me even more than pre-ordered. ‘Pre-warn’ and ‘Pre-plan’, for example. How can you warn or plan unless it’s ‘before’? The only way I can pre-warn someone is to say: “I’d like to warn you that I will warn you that a rabbit is about to eat your sandwiches.” I can’t think of a scenario where ‘pre-plan’ would make any sense.

With ‘warn’ and ‘plan’, adding ‘pre’ is pointless. It’s a waste of three perfectly decent letters that could be busy doing something useful somewhere else. And ‘Pre-recorded’? How can you ‘pre-record’ anything? If something’s been recorded, it must have happened in the past. A radio programme that isn’t live wasn’t ‘pre-recorded’. It was just recorded. And then it was broadcast. Until Apple invents the iTimeTravel, we can’t record things from the future. Preposterous.

4 responses

1. Mark says:

   April 21, 2012 at 10:21 am

   Perfectly said! (Was gonna say, “pre-fectly said.) Great writing, btw!
2. David Staines says:

   April 21, 2012 at 1:06 pm

   I go along with preplan and preorder. I think you’re on stickier ground with prerecord. In the narrow sense of prerecording music (say) you have got a case. But it can be used in the sense of recorded earlier. To be ready for an action in the present. As, for example, it compares with precooked. This means something you are eating at present was precooked i.e. cooked earlier which saves four letters.
3. Simon Carne says:

   August 30, 2012 at 5:57 pm

   This is becoming a popular pet hate for many writers, but some of the criticism doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. For example, isn’t the best argument against “pre-warn” that we have “forewarn”, not that we have “warn”?

   Furthermore, “forewarn” and “warn” are not the same. To “warn” can be to admonish: it happens after the event. Yes, it warns of future punishment if the event happens again, but you don’t “forewarn” a miscreant not to do it again; you “warn” them.

   Moving on, if I go to a theatre bar and say I want to “pre-order” a drink, it would suggest that I want a drink to be prepared for me to collect during the interval, not for immediate service. The inclusion of “pre-” denotes that I want the service to be delayed. The pre-fix isn’t necessary if I spell out that I want the drink “for the interval”, but it acts as an extra safeguard against confusion. Nobody asks to “pre-order” a drink for immediate consumption.

   Likewise, if Amazon tells me I can order a book, my understanding is that they will package it up and sent it to me immediately (or, to be more accurate, as soon as they have completed all the orders ahead of me in the queue). But if Amazon tells me I can “pre-order” a book, I will understand straightaway that the book isn’t available for packaging yet and I should look further to see how long a wait is likely – possibly weeks or months. Again, the pre-fix isn’t necessary, but it acts as a clear signal at the earliest possible moment and reduces the chance of misunderstanding or complaint.

   The word may have been invented recently, but it’s a good invention. Why knock it?
4. Simon Carne says:

   August 30, 2012 at 6:01 pm

   … on the other hand, how can you take me seriously, after I write “pre-fix” with a hyphen? Maybe the moderators will corect it for me.