Grammar Moses: 'Pre-prepare' to learn a thing or two about prefixes

Constant reader Stan Zegel wants to know whether there are what he characterized as "stuttering verbs" in the language other than "pre-prepared."

Putting it more genteelly, are there verbs for which the prefix is repeated in the root of the verb?

Well, Stan, if you can waltz and tango, surely you can cancan. Am I right?

I can barely waltz without scuffing my wife's shoes beyond repair, so perhaps this is a bad analogy.

Beyond that, Stan, you've stumped me.

I would argue that you've wasted a syllable with "pre-prepared." Even Boy Scouts, whose motto has been "Be Prepared" since 1908, don't pre-prepare.

The electric-yellow stuff in the squeeze bottle you put on your hot dog is prepared mustard. If it's pre-prepared, does someone squeeze it onto your dog for you?

Your use of the "pre-" prefix has me thinking: People put "pre-" in front of all manner of verbs, presumably to accentuate them.

One plans a trip. Are you doing it any better - or differently - if you preplan it? This seems to be the most pedestrian example of verb inflation.

In the thriller "Minority Report," Tom Cruise uses a trio of "pre-cogs" (precognitive people) working in concert to predict when and where a crime will be committed. Tom, who plays a futuristic cop, then swoops in and intervenes before the crime is to happen. (Gee, what could possibly go wrong there?)

Is he pre-preventing or pre-preempting these crimes?

This is even farther off topic, but meteorologists traditionally have forecast the weather. So, what is a "future cast," which seems to be all the rage today? Does a future cast predict farther into the future than your run-of-the-mill forecast? Does it predict weather more accurately?

My guess is that is broadly implied.

I view our obsessions with one-upmanship and marketing to be the culprits here.

"Pre-" seems to be the preeminent prefix. I blame all of these unnecessary "pre-" atoms floating around in the atmosphere, attaching themselves willy-nilly to our language, weighing it down and creating redundancies within a single word.

I don't intend to sound preachy about this topic. Nor am I prepared to write further on it.

Quite literally

Stan also sent me a link to a rip-roaring piece in the Daily Mail (https://mol.im/a/9887891).

It's a compilation of photos of people exhibiting outrageously literal interpretations of signs in their presence.

One sign suggests that if your dog leaves something in the park, you put it in a litter bin. The photo shows a man about to put his dog - not his, er, dog's business - in the litter bin.

Another shows a man standing alongside a road and drawing a bridge on a sketch pad. In the distance is a sign that reads, "Draw Bridge."

Not to be outdone by the Daily Mail, Stan wrote, "A sign in the men's room at Northwestern Station downtown (reads) 'Wet floor,' but I prefer to use the urinal instead."

(Groan.)

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.