Preponement? | Q&A about words

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#86731 - 11/12/02 09:28 AM Preponement?
mph stranger Registered: 11/12/02 Posts: 11	A colleague of mine was just asked if they could prepone a meeting i.e. bring it forward. Is this a legitimate antonym of to postpone or a newly made up nonsense word?
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#86732 - 11/12/02 09:43 AM Re: Preponement?
wwh Carpal Tunnel Registered: 01/18/01 Posts: 13858	prepone - PREPONE. South Asian speakers have evolved the logical word "prepone" to mean the opposite of "postpone": to move forward in time. ... http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/prepone.html At first I thought the coinage clumsy, but on second thought, I'm surprised ;it didn't happen a long time ago.
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#86733 - 11/12/02 09:49 AM Re: Preponement?
Sparteye Pooh-Bah Registered: 01/05/01 Posts: 1773	Hello mph. May I call you Miles? I suspect that "prepone" is a jocular construct akin to the modern use of "couth". Google shows 2,730 hits, but they are mostly non-English sites or apparently the name of a hurtler. Still, there are plenty of instances of "prepone" as you have posited it, and I've used it myself, so it must be a goodly word . Here is a link to a discussion of prepone when used in the contra-postpone sense: http://theatlantic.com/unbound/fugitives/moveitup.htm Interestingly, there is an American Sign Language sign for this concept, and the New Oxford Dictionary of English lists it. Also interestingly, I see that our own tsuwm participated in that discussion.
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#86734 - 11/12/02 10:54 AM Re: Preponement?
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13803	there is an American Sign Language sign for this concept Is the ASL of a form that could fit the construction, i.e., with a pone component and a pre component with a corresponding sign for the postpone concept that has a differing post component and an identical pone component? Are there other words well accepted in English that have pre- and post- forms that I just can't seem to think of off the top of my head?
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#86735 - 11/12/02 11:08 AM Re: Preponement?
mph stranger Registered: 11/12/02 Posts: 11	Or Mike. Please do - I'm a friendly kinda guy. Thanks for the replies. It seems to have enough credentials for me to further propogate its usage...
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#86736 - 11/12/02 11:28 AM Re: Preponement?
wwh Carpal Tunnel Registered: 01/18/01 Posts: 13858	Dear Faldage: there are quite a few such pairs. prewar, postwar, etc. But many pre-s and post-s could be made into word-game candidates. Do you have to be a premistress before you can become a postmistress?
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#86737 - 11/12/02 11:41 AM Re: Preponement?
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13803	Yeahbut®, how about words where the part after the pre/post isn't used all by its lonesome. I've thought of prelude and postlude. We even have interlude, but no lude.
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#86738 - 11/12/02 12:32 PM Re: Preponement?
wwh Carpal Tunnel Registered: 01/18/01 Posts: 13858	lude n. 5< QUAALUDE6 [Slang] a methaqualone pill
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#86739 - 11/12/02 01:06 PM Re: Preponement?
AnnaStrophic Carpal Tunnel Registered: 03/15/00 Posts: 6511 Loc: lower upstate New York	lude Go get 'im, Dr. Bill!
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#86740 - 11/12/02 01:15 PM Re: Ludes
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13803	So prelude is the feeling I get that makes me want to take ludes, postlude is the morning after feeling and interlude is my feeling while still under the influence?
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