Would the Indian English "mistake" of "prepone" that has become an acceptable word now, qualify as a back-formation?

I would also like to know about the evolution of "full-fledged" versus "fully-fledged".

Did prepone come from Indian English? I certainly wouldn't consider it a mistake. It's a word coined to fill an otherwise unfilled need, like proactive. It's certainly not a mistake on the level of cherry or pea.

It's not a back-formation. I agree with Faldo. It's just a newly coined word that uses bits and pieces that originally came from Latin. I wouldn't call cherry and pea mistakes either. The term in linguistics is reanalysis. The -s at the end of the singular of those words was reanalyzed as the plural marker, so the new no-s-ending singulars came into being.

it's not back-formed from postpone? interesting.

it's not back-formed from postpone?

I wouldn't call it back-formation, but maybe others would. I see on the other words board (protocols be damned!), Faldo has asked after prepone. I think of classic back-formation as something like babysit from babysitter or burgle from burglar. Here, the post of postpone is being replaced by another Latinate preposition-particle thingie, i.e., pre-.

At least with pre-pone one has the opportunity to un-pone as well.

And it looks like I've gotten an answer. The estimable languagehat has proclaimed it to be from Indian English. It was seen earlier in American English but the source of the modern usage is Indian English. And if languagehat says it, I'm prepared (or even postpared) to believe it.

This was such interesting reading that my apple rests beside me unpared.

Well then, if pea came from pease and cherry from cherise, can we expext a single rie from rice?

We already have a single die as part of a pair of dice.

"Eighter from Decatur,
the county seat of Wise."

One new useage I have noted recently is reference as a verb; instead of saying "refered to" people are saying "he referenced the article by soandso". I assume that is a back formation.

can we expext a single rie from rice?

I'm sure it could happen, but that does not mean it must. The anomaly with dice is not that dice was a singular, but that it was unusually spelled plural.

makes sense, thanks. I'll go depone the cornpone.

:¬ )

Is there a word for unnecessary back-formations? It is all too common to hear "orientate" from "orientation" when there is the perfectly good word "orient".

When I was knee-high to a grass-hopper [60+ years ago], several of my aunts got married and they were given the 'calithumpian' treatment.
The only difference was that, in South Australia at least, it was called a "tin-kettling" - but it would have still been just as noisy, though.
These functions seemed to be observed more in rural districts rather than in urban areas.
Perhaps the neighbours didn't like the noise ??

Is there a word for unnecessary back-formations?

Not a single word. If I felt the way you do and needed to talk about them, I would probably call them unnecessary back-formations.

Accrete? What's wrong with accrue? This is getting out of hand. I walked into an office last week and the receptionist recepted me.

According to the OED, accrete is not a backformation.

To calm down at the end of this busy week, I plan to cathect with the fresh salt air watching the sun slowly set in the west behind the Manhattan skyline neatly framed between the bridges where the Long Island Sound and East River meet. As I cerebrate on this lovely sight, far from the callithump of cases which each day sing their sassy song as they cross my desk, I may accrete a sense of profound sense of peace and say, Thank God it's Friday.