Chris Hansell's presentation/sales pitch on his Squadron Models Hanebu last night got me thinking. The phrase "back orders" was mentioned and then "pre-orders" was thrown into the conversation. This phase "pre-order" really gets my blood pressure up. Have a think...what does it mean?
The verb "order" means to book or reserve something in advance of it's use or availability so adding "pre" beforehand must mean you are referring to whatever happened before you ordered it. What would that be? The process of picking up the telephone? Thinking about ordering it? Whenever I ring up to book theatre tickets for example and I am asked if I want to "pre-order" I ALWAYS take great delight in telling the unfortunate box office attendant that I have done that already by dialling her number. I am now wishing to actually ORDER the tickets!
In fact, the misuse of the prefix "pre" is becoming more and more prevalent in our language. I have seen bags of shredded cheese labelled as "pre-grated cheddar" when what is meant is "ready grated cheddar" (pre-grated would be the condition it was in PRIOR to being grated - ie a solid block), "pre-packed meat" which is actually wrapped in plastic and not sat bleeding all over the shelf as truly "pre-packed" meat would be. I'm sure you lot can add to this list, but let's move on to some of my other pet hates...
PIN Number. The acronym PIN stands for Personal Identification Number, so why are you often asked to enter your PIN Number and not just your PIN. I have observed that the staff at Aldi use the correct terminology so three cheers for their training protocols!
Addictions. When someone is addicted to alcohol, they are described as an alcoholic. Someone who can't stop working is known as a "workoholic". If we examine the suffixes used, alcohol gets "ic" but work is afforded the luxury of extra letters and granted the suffix "oholic". Surely to be consistent we should use the same suffix for everything so it should be either "alcoholoholic" or "workic".
Marathons. When people run a certain distance, it is described as a marathon. When they swim a particular distance or dance for a certain amount of time it is known as a "swimathon" or "danceathon". Why then, when we put our trainers on to go for a fast jog, do we refer to it as a run and not a "mar" - or indeed why do we not go for a "runathon." For the purposes of this argument, we must put aside what we know about the ancient Greek origin of the word and concentrate how we modern humans have corrupted and bastardised things for our own amusement.
Remember folks this is just for fun but I'd be interested to read about what gets your goat - but let's try not to go down too many rabbit holes about text speak, Americanisms or saying who instead of whom!
