My idiosyncrasy was my loathing of the word (or, should I say non-word) “pre-prepared”. My goodness, did my colleagues hear me rant about this word! Now, I don’t like to think I am a dogmatic, old-fashioned, grammar pedant, and I am certainly not a member of the Semi-Colon Protection Society. And yet, here I go again: Enough with the extra “pre”!
In my defence, it’s important to say that this is not a matter of pedantry. Quite the opposite, if we just made time to consider the meaning of the different parts of words (in other words, the morphology) we would make sense of a language that, let’s face it, is often non-sensical to someone with dyslexia. Morphology by definition makes sense of things. In fact, in the words of Maryanne Wolf in the Dyslexia Initiative Coffee Talk podcast of November 2020, it is the “secret source of reading fluency”.If we stopped to think about the words we use, like “pre-prepared”, we might find that language takes on a whole new dimension for us as well as our learners.
Let’s look at this word morphologically. “Prepare” is made of two morphemes; the prefix “pre-“, meaning before, or in advance, and the root “pare”, which derives from Latin and means “make ready”, or “bring forth” (as in parent). So the extra “pre” in “pre-prepared” is redundant; it’s already there! You don’t need to get something ready in advance of getting it ready in advance. Unless you are a Blue Peter presenter, possibly…
Knowing that “pare” means getting ready, or bringing forth, leads me to consider the word “parent”. Speaking as one of these, I can tell you that knowing what your job title means is transformational. Fundamentally, my job is to prepare my child for adulthood, and this long term view can be so helpful during the tortuous toddler phase!
There are so many other words which can be made sense of morphologically. In school, I always confused refraction and reflection. But knowing that “fract” means break, as in “fracture”, and “flect” means bend as in “flex my muscles” helps me sort that one out now. Tricky spellings can also be made sense of. Circle is not spelled “sercle” as as it comes from Latin “circulus” meaning round, and this helps us understand the meaning of circuit, circus, circulate, circumference. Soften is not spelled as “soffen” because it comes from “soft” and the verb making suffix -en. Picked is not “pict”; it is made up of pick and the past tense suffix -ed, and the common younger child’s misspelling “restid” can be explained in the same way. The rogue “w” in the spelling of “write” is easier to remember when you know “wr” comes from the Old English for twist; and it’s related to wreath, wrinkle, wriggle, wrist, wring and wrangle. The rogue “o” in the commonly misspelled word “people” is easier to remember when it’s related to populous, or population.
This list is endless and the possibilities numerous. This is the joy and power of morphology. The point is that being a word geek can be awesomely empowering, making aspects of language so much easier for everyone, but especially those for whom language can be a source of frustration, to understand. Who knew that in our phonically focused educating world, that our language has been so well pre-prepared before, earlier and in advance?!
