Prepone & Postpone

Postpone (pronounced pohst-pohn or pohs-pohn)

(1) To put off to a later time; to defer.

(2) To place after in order of importance or estimation; to subordinate in a hierarchy (rare, probably obsolete).

1490–1500: From the Latin postpōnere (to put after, esteem less, neglect, lay aside), the construct being post- (after) + pōnere (to put, to place) and postpōnō (I put after; I postpone), the construct being post (after) + pōnō (I put; I place).  The usual meaning in Latin was the one now rare (to place something lower in importance); the now almost universal sense of an "act of deferring to a future time" is from 1770, the common form since then postpone + -ment.  Earlier, Dr Johnson in 1755 listed postponence.  The -ment suffix was from the Middle English -ment, from the Late Latin -amentum, from -mentum which came via Old French -ment.  It was used to form nouns from verbs, the nouns having the sense of "the action or result of what is denoted by the verb".  The suffix is most often attached to the stem without change, except when the stem ends in -dge, where the -e is sometimes dropped (abridgment, acknowledgment, judgment, lodgment et al), with the forms without -e preferred in American English.  The most widely known example of the spelling variation is probably judgment vs judgement.  Judgement is said to be a "free variation" word where either spelling is considered acceptable as long as use is consistent.  Like enquiry vs inquiry, this can be a handy where a convention of use can be structured to impart great clarity: judgment used when referring to judicial rulings and judgement for all other purposes although the approach is not without disadvantage given one might write of the judgement a judge exercised before delivering their judgment.  To those not aware of the convention, it could look just like a typo.  Postpone (used with object) is a verb; postponed & postponing are verbs, postponed & postponable are adjectives and postponement & postponer are nouns.  Synonyms include adjourn, defer, delay, forestay, hold up, shelve, suspend, put on ice, pigeonhole, prorogue, posticipate, table, carry over, carry forward, cool it, procrastinate, hang fire, hold off, hold over, lay over, put back & put on hold.

Noting the twentieth anniversary of the body-swap comedy Freaky Friday (2003) staring Lindsay Lohan & Jamie-Lee Curtis (b 1958), it was in early 2023 reported a sequel was in the works with work on the screenplay "well-advanced".  Both actors were reportedly expected to reprise their roles but the project has been postponed because of co-ordinated strike action by the actors and screen writers.

Prepone (pronounced pree-pohn)

To reschedule to an earlier day or time.

Pre 1550: From Middle English, the construct being pre- (before) + (post)pone.  A back formation modeled on postpone, it’s now an antonym of the source.  The modern is patterned on the same basis as the circa 1972 prequel (from sequel).  The prefix pre- was from the Middle English pre-, from the Latin prae-, from the preposition prae (before) (prae- & præ- although archaic, still in occasional use for technical or pedantic purposes).  In most cases, it's usually prefixed to words without a hyphen (prefix, predate et al) but a hyphen is used where (1) excluding a hyphen would be likely to lead to a mispronunciation of the word because "pre" appears not to be a complete syllable, (2) (in British English) before the letter e, (3) (often in British English) before other vowels and (4) before a character other than a letter.

Many dictionaries list the origin of prepone as a creation of Indian English in the early 1970s but the first known instance in the sense of “to set before” predates even the Raj, the first known instance from ecclesiastical writing in 1549.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) credits the first use to Puritan clergyman and polemicist Robert Crowley (1517–1588), who in 1549 wrote: “I do prepone and set the Lord alwaye before myne eyes.”  However, it seems to have gone dormant, apparently not seen in print until published in December 1913 by the New York Times (NYT), in a letter to the editor in which a Mr John D Trenor advised he had decided to “…coin the word prepone as a needed rival of that much revered and oft-invoked standby, postpone.”  A useful word certainly but what the Mr Trenor actually had done was take Mr Crowley’s word and vest it with a new meaning: an antonym of postpone.  Prepone, a back-construction from postpone seems a good word to those who value the elegance of sparseness in sentences.  One can prepone something more effortless than can one “move that appointment earlier” or “advance that deadline” or “bring it forward to an earlier date”.  Nor should it suffer from overuse; given we probably are all prone more to procrastinate than persevere, postponements seem likely to remain more prevalent than preponements.

The idea of prepone being an invention of modern Indian English appears based on a spike in use in the early 1970s after what was probably an independent coining of the word rather than a revival of something from the NYT decades before.  Interestingly, there’s a streak of the linguistic puritanical among some English-speaking Indians.  Prepone, a most useful word, has been a part of Indian English for decades but is shunned by many, particularly the more educated and while it appears in the odd newspaper, it’s almost absent from books, teachers often emphasizing its lowly status.  It’s a curious phenomenon.  While native English speakers delight in adopting Indian-inspired contributions to English (bungalow; pyjamas et al), among highly-educated Indian speakers of English, there is a prejudice against local creations, the phrase “as we say in Indian English” often added, sometimes almost in apologia.  It’s certainly not an aversion to the new, Indians as quick as anyone else to pick up “selfie”, “sext” and of course, “avatar” (actually from Hindu mythology).

Prepone: Not all Indians approve.

Informally (but most stridently), India has an English Language "establishment" which speaks English with a clipped precision now rare in the West.  Not a humorous lot, they're dedicated to the task of ensuring Indian English doesn't descend to the debased thing it so often is in less civilized places (the UK, Australia, the US etc) and they publish much material to correct use by errant Indians and admonish the linguistically unhygienic.  It's the empire striking back and prepone is on their (long) list of proscribed barbarisms which is a shame because it's an attractive and useful word and surely Shakespeare would have approved.