Predate doesn’t have a hyphen, ’tis a perfectly good word in the sense of antedate. Ask the Oxford. Predate as in “Sharks predate on small fish” is not a good word and gets used by people who think it’s derived from the words “predator” or “predation”. Possibly the same people who use “impact” as a verb. Sharks prey upon small fish. Milk bottles do not prey upon great tits. Will now remove my editorial nitpicker’s hat and try to remember that the English language is evolving, even if I don’t like it. Helen
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________________________________ From: brian fleming
On 26/08/2011 3:02 PM, John Leonard wrote: > predate = dating from before > predate = preying upon > > Aren’t the same word, they are separate words that happen to be spelt > the same. They are clearly distinguished by the stress > > pre’date vs > ‘predate > > John Leonard
I would use a hyphen.
I wonder if “Language Log” will pick up this discussion.
Brian Fleming ===============================
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