Effective Communication -II : A Word A Week(AWAW)

Folks,
Thanks for the feedback from last week’s column. I hope that write up was effective as I intend to be. Like most of you folks English is not my first language and I tend to make mistakes as well and am not ashamed when someone points out that. So please don’t think I am trying to point fingers at someone or any specific incident. I have compiled few words which are used/misused and would clarify in AWAW session.

Continuing our discussion on Effective communication, I have an interesting word for this week. The choice of word is interesting because as I was composing this newsletter I realized oxford decided to release few new words into the dictionary. Most common words which you and I have heard during past FIFA world cup 2010 is ”vuvuzelas”. Another word which I have used commonly which released in the dictionary is “chillax” (I can see my college buddy’s name written all over it, he added x to all commonly used words to sound more like “Asterix and Obelix” world). All these words have been added to Oxford dictionary which would mean in English(UK), it would take some time to propagate to English(US). I will write something about these two English versions of dictionary/standards in a separate column.

I have manage to write couple of paragraphs of this column without yet getting to the word of the week but setting the stage. This word has had an interesting journey from being an non-existent word to be a word to be added to one of the dictionary(Oxford, so the setup in the second paragraph). Still this word is considered non-existent word in most parts of the world. Merriam Webster’s hasn’t added the word “Prepone” to the dictionary. Oxford Dictionary online suggests this word from India with the usage of Postpone and Pre. I did a quick search of word Prepone in Webster’s dictionary and couldn’t find it . Hence not the widely accepted. Let us take about wide acceptance in a separate column. Why didn’t the word Postpone have a antonym “prepone” to begin with ? That is because the word postpone came from Latin word “Postponere”. Latin didn’t have a “Preponere”. For folks interested in Etymology here is the scoop

Etymology: Latin postponere to place after, postpone, from post- + ponere to place — more at position
Date: circa 1520


My recommendation for this week would be to avoid using this word in Business communication until it is widely accepted. Instead the right word usage is “advance” . For e.g. “I will advance my trip by a week” instead of “I will prepone my trip by a week” . You can chose to use this word in non-official communication to force it to Webster’s dictionary J. Business communication should be clear, concise and communicative (3Cs).



Reference:
[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100819/od_nm/us_britain_dictionary
[2] http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0658300#m_en_gb0658300
[3] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prepone
[4] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/postpone

PS: Please don’t hesitate to forward this to your friends /colleagues, Spread the word.