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Mind your language

Should you be prejudiced against ‘pre-’?

Suspect-looking terms with a surprisingly long provenance

9 August 2014

9:00 AM

9 August 2014

9:00 AM

‘Pre-diabetes is an artificial category with virtually zero clinical relevance,’ said an American professor in the Times. A friend of mine has even been told by the vet that her little cat is in a pre-diabetic condition, being a little over the norm on the feline body mass index. I began to think that pre-diabetes was like the countryman’s hills: if you can see them it’s going to rain.

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