Pre- this, baby

A tip of the cap on this to Brian Santo (aka Wretch, as in ink-stained), who years ago published what amounted to a chemical equation as a headline in EE Times. It hung in another colleague's office until just last year.

Onward... Brian brings up the abuse of the prefix "pre." “Pre” is a prefix that you can easily begin to watch out for. There are scores of words where it is correct, but scores of words that lazy writers have coined and, in the process, created hilarious redundancies. For instance:
"...it comes pre-installed..."
"...it's pre-packaged..."
"... the system is pre-configured..."
"When I'm really old, I expect my food to be pre-chewed."

As I noted in my inaugural post, there's "pre-plan ahead." And there's a "pre-established" whatever.

Researching this post, I came across "preadult," which originated between 1900-1905. What's wrong with "adolescent" and "child?"

In any case, I'm feeling prescient that there will a fair amount of pre-game imbiding this Super Bowl Sunday, which will precipitate a predisposition among many to precarious amounts of tipsness. There is precedent.
But this may just be my prejudice.