Post-prefix Post

Prefixes, apparently, are endlessly fascinating (click here) – okay, maybe not, but they continue to be an interesting enough linguistic element to be pondered and written about: today’s New York Times features a short piece by Verlyn Klinkenborg (who has a Ph.D. in English literature from Princeton) on its editorial page, no less, celebrating the prefix “post-,” as in “postmodern.” “It may seem odd to celebrate a prefix,” Klinkenborg writes. “After all, it isn’t even a whole part of speech. It does for a word, visually, what a big cigar does for a small man. But even as prefixes go, 'post-' is unusually adaptable. It signifies transcendence, surpassing, moving past, leaving behind, and yet it does all these things while remaining attached to the very thing the prefix is leaving in the dust.” Read his entire piece here (available free from the Times for seven days from today).