Pre-Plan

The 9-25-10 A Way with Words show, Tweet Nothings, talked about the use of "Pre-Plan". The caller felt that it was redundant. All plans are definitionally in advance. Grant argued that it might be kinda okay to use "pre-plan" if we understand that's it's being used to mean "planning well in advance" as opposed to "planning for the near term". I'm not sure I agree that's how the term is really be used however.

I think there are two things going on here. One is language inflation. In organizations where everything is a plan - policies, procedures - and "planning" is ubiquitous, it's understandable that they'd search for a term to use when they are actually planning something. The answer  here, of course, is to stop over-using the word "plan."

But it's the other sense of "pre-plan" in practice that I think makes a case for its use. The "pre", I think, does not mean "before" so much as is short for "preliminary". "Pre-plans" are preliminary plans that are too sketchy to be actually considered a plan yet. If this is what's meant, the pre-planner then is either not willing to commit to an actual plan yet or not wanting to do the work of actually creating the specifics and details the plan will require.

Even when the first case is true, "pre-plan" is being used when "plan" is actually meant because "plan" is too often used, "pre-plan" conveys a certain equivocation in its invocation. I don't really have any ideas for how to proceed, so I'm throwing this out to the group. I can't be held accountable for the contents of the plan since this is only a pre-plan, anyway.