Who on earth was it that invented the ridiculous modern trend to put the prefix "pre-" in front of certain words ?
The academic Sarah Churchwell made a very valid point on 'Question Time' last Thursday when the panel was discussing government and opposition 're-shuffles'. As a Professor of American Literature, she quite rightly complained that the "re-" was a wholly redundant addition; what the party leaders were doing was to 'shuffle' their packs and to say 're-shuffle' was pointless and meaningless twaddle.
The same clearly applies to "pre-booking" and "pre-ordering". If I order goods, I order them; I don't "pre-order"; what, in fact, does "pre-order" actually mean ? Does it have any validity as an English word ? The same can be said of the equally stupid "pre-book" though, to be fair, the horrible "pre-owned" may have some meaning even if it is a little cumbersome and simply an advertisers' ploy to avoid the less attractive "second hand".
Why is it that some people feel the need to mangle our perfectly good language in these ways ? No wonder our children have such problems with literacy.
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