Prepone

[Barnhart]

prepone
  or pre-pone   DC Vol. 10.3
preponement     DC Vol. 10.3

Found in the Barnhart NEW-WORDS CONCORDANCE, to appear in the Barnhart
DICTIONARY COMPANION (Vol. 10.3, c. Spring 1998).

Indicism--probably.

Was prepone dealt with in one of the WOTY sessions?  My records are not
handy here.

Regards,
David

barnhart at highlands.com

American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> writes:
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Prepone
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 10:46 PM -0400 8/20/07, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>>"Prepone" = "move to an earlier time", the opposite of "postpone", is
>>(I guess) well known as a word which is usual in the English of India
>>etc. but virtually unknown in the UK or the US. [What is this called?
>>An Indicism? A Subcontinentalism?]
>>
>>Of course it's a fine word and it must have occurred now and then in
>>the US (also UK, etc.), right?
>
>It's an example I use in class of Indian English; I suppose if
>pressed I'd be willing to call it an Indicism.  I don't doubt the
>U.S. occurrences, but I've never encountered one directly.  (In the
>last group below, there's some interference from "prepose", which of
>course is adapted from the participle of the same Latin verb.  I've
>always thought it a neat division of labo(u)r that "prepone" is used
>(if at all) only for temporal occurrences, while "prepose" is
>reserved--at least by linguists--for spatial ones.
>
>LH
>
>>
>>Here is a US example from 1946 (from Google Books with a snippet,
>>therefore not 100% reliable ... but it looks good):
>>
>>----------
>>
>>Walter Phelps Hall, _Iron Out of Calvary_ [WW II history]
>>(Appleton-Century, New York, 1946), p. 258:
>>
>><<... asserting that the original date of September 15, as planned
>>for the grand assault, had actually been preponed, not postponed.>>
>>
>>----------
>>
>>There is also a Google Books (snippet) example in the periodical
>>_Jewish Education_, but I can't date it: <<actual study from the book
>>begins in the second year, with a few schools preponing it to the
>>third term of the first school year.>> It looks 20th-century, and I
>>suppose it's probably not from India.
>>
>>There are also occasional instances of "prepone" with other meanings,
>>e.g., = "prefix" [verb] ("add as a prefix"/"place in front")
>>(synonymous "antepone" also occurs).
>>
>>-- Doug Wilson
>>
>>
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