pre-purchased

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Wednesday, June 12, 2002 1:32 pm -0700 FRITZ JUENGLING
<juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US> wrote:

> Here is a note from our person in charge of student 'stuff' at our high
> school:
>
> All students who pre-purchased a yearbook will have theirs delivered
> directly to their homes from the yearbook company.   Last chance to get
> your yearbook inserts today after school, for those who have already
> purchased yearbooks.
>
> Any comments on 'pre-purchased'?  Why not just 'purchased' ?  Of course,
> I understand it, but it looks and sounds very odd to me, especially since
> she switched to 'already purchased' late rin the message.

Pre-purchased because you're not actually in possession of the thing you
purchased yet--ownership of the yearbook is still vague (the payer 'owns'
it without having it).  I'd probably prefer 'all students who've paid for
their yearbooks'.

Lynne

Lynne



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320