Prior
What is it about "prior" that makes it so irresistible to officials? It's all over airports, for instance, including flight attendants telling us that our seat belts must be fastened, etc, "prior to departure" or the shuttles at Dulles' signs warning us to "wait for the shuttle to come to a complete halt prior to approaching doors".
On top of everything else, that's not really clear. In fact, I don't think it really says what they want it to mean - especially the flight attendant's instruction.
But that's nothing - nothing - to the confuse when "prior" is used on road signs.
Take this gem on the Capital Beltway:
LOW BRIDGE
PRIOR EXIT 1
PRIOR EXIT 1
Now what on earth does that mean? Is the bridge before or after Exit 1?
Labels: language
2 Comments:
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At 11:32 PM, December 24, 2007
Barry Leiba had this to say...
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At 12:10 AM, December 25, 2007
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->Hm. "Prior to" means "before". What else might it mean? It's pompous, but I don't see how it's confusing.
The road sign is, indeed, confusing because of the lack of punctuation and possible omission of the "to". So you don't know whether they mean
«Low bridge prior [to] exit 1» (with no advice on how to avoid it)
or
«Low bridge [ahead]. [The] prior exit [is number] 1.» (advising you to avoid the problem by taking exit 1).
I have no idea which they mean.
Well, for me, "before" is better because it can take so many different complements. Such as "seat belts must be fastened before we can depart" which is not the same thing as "before we depart = prior to departure". And the subject of anything following prior should be the same as the subject in the main clause, which it is in "wait for the shuttle to come to a complete halt prior to approaching doors" - but that could mean that the shuttle itself will halt before it approaches the doors. It doesn't, but your first time on the shuttle you might take it for that meaning. It's just needlessly confusing.
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