prepone

A backformation created from the word "postpone," created by replacing "post" with "pre" to convey a nebulous sense of what the user has in mind with respect to sequential or temporal placement of something. A non-word with a limited currency in technically oriented circles, has yet to gain widespread or consistent use in authoritative dictionaries considered to uphold legitimate standards of usage by linguistically or verbally sophisticated language users, who think it rebarbative. Some nonauthorities subscribe to the school of thought that the word is formed from the eating of corn pone, biscuit-like food commonly eaten at breakfast by industrious tillers of the soil in rural regions of the U.S., who couldn't always wait for the corn pone to finish baking before eating it, necessitating their eating of "prepone" for breakfast. With migration trends tending to flow from countryside to city, prepone came to be adopted for more loose or general use to refer to things that occur before originally planned.

1. "Discussion of having writing training for our engineers so the clarity and style of their writing will equal their elevated intelligence and contribution to our company, has been preponed from next week's agenda to this week." 2. "Doggone it Ma, I gots to mosey on down to the field - jes fetch me some prepone an' I'll be gittin' on."

by sam September 12, 2003

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