"Before-the-bell"

[Wilson Gray]

>From ZDNet:

"This morning, in a _before-the-bell_, in a press conference _giving_
by the two company's [sick! Uh, I mean "sic"] executives, ATi
president David Orton said ..."

There are some 490,000 some odd [How long has it been since "some odd"
was an everyday phrase? I'm not even sure how to write it, anymore.
Hyphenated? Not hyphenated?] googlits for the phrase in various
environments. It seems to mean something like "before the business day
officially  begins," perhaps influenced by the bell that starts the
school day and / or the bell that opens the stock market.

The hypercorrection of -en participles to -ing participles has become
endemic in both speech and writing. Sigh!

-Wilson Gray
--
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have
found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be
imposed upon them.

Frederick Douglass

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