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Thu 16 Sep, 2004 08:28 am
Hi! Could someone be kind enough to explain the meaning of this word in the following part of a news commentary I read recently:
MSNBC's Becky Diamond reports that Kerry will talk about the overextension of Guard personnel and the "enormous sacrifice" made by Guard families. He speaks in Las Vegas at 3:30 pm.
The Bush campaign prebuts by charging that "Kerry has not only made comments denigrating the National Guard, but also voted against $87 billion in funding to support National Guard members serving in Iraq and Afghanistan with critical supplies such as body armor and ammunition."
I have not found the word even in M.-Webster Unabridged or other dicts. The meaning is somewhat clear to me, but I'd be glad to hear where it comes from.
(Incidentally, these styles seem not to work; I tried to highlight the word in question and use quotations, but all the marks went to the end of the text.)
Thank you
The marks go to the end of the text, but they're code -- if you just go ahead and submit, it will show up.
I've never seen the word before but I image it combines the "pre" prefix (ahead, before) with "rebut." So the meaning would be reubutting before the statement to be rebutted has been made.
(The article says that Kerry WILL say that -- the Bush campaign is rebutting, or "prebutting", before he has actually said it.)
OK!
Thank you, sozobe. I should have thought of that, but being non-English...
No problem. You're written English here is very good.
By the way, 'prebut' was chosen as one of the top 'new words' of 1996, as I vaguely recall, by an appropriate US academic body.
Quote:So the meaning would be reubutting before the statement to be rebutted has been made.
But then the statement to be rebutted would change in the light of what was said in the prebut. Therefore as you can't counter a statement before the statement is known, the idea of pre-butting something is nonsense.
Its a bit like a preventative defensive strike. There is no such thing. In English its called an attack.
It makes about as much sense as "What you are about to say is nonsense"!
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