I have never heard this term before today, and came across it in an announcement of a new clinic for joint replacement referrals. The intention is to see people who need hip or knee replacements and to 'tee them up' so that they will be ready for surgery in reasonable shape. Presumably, since 're-hab' is what happens after the surgery, some bright spark feels that the surgery itself must be 'hab' and what they are planning to do will be 'pre-hab'! I don't know whether to feel horrified by such a deformation of sensible language, or whether to feel admiration for the ability of the language to survive such torture and still convey meaning. I'd like to know how to properly describe the error, though. There's a back etymology, and a false etymology involved. Is it fair to call it a false back-etymology?
Chris
I heard "pretirement" today as a term for unemployment.
I thought it was clever.
Bios Theoretikos said:
. . . Is it fair to call it a false back-etymology?
I don't think that's the right word for it. I think "pre-hab" is an abbreviation of the "word" pre-habilitation, which word, of course, makes no sense. "Re-hab" makes sense as a pithy abbreviation of rehabilitation, but "pre-hab" is missing a prefix. I suppose, correctly, it should be "pre-re-hab", but that still suggests a post-procedure status. I've never heard the abbreviation "pre-hab", but it sounds sadly illiterate, considering it probably comes from well-educated doctors.
To get back to your point, I don't think it's back-formed; I think it's an ill-formed bastardization of an already-bastardized word and abbreviation. I mean, if anything, what you're talking about is pre-procedure, and so has nothing to do with rehabilitation after the procedure.
That said, anything that can get a person and her family through a difficult medical time is tops in my book, whatever the hell the doctors call it. Etymology matters little when quality of life or life itself is at stake.
Pre-Hab is terrible.
Rehabilitation means to restore to good health. You can't Prehabilitate.
Things done before surgery are commonly referred to as "Pre-Op"
I never thought I'd find myself in the position of defending a construction that's indefensible and offensive, but it's "cute" and it works. You'll never make sense of it by looking at pre- , re-, -habilitate, or rehabilitate. It works because it imitates rehab in an instantly recognizable way. Don't look for logic here, only association. Despise it if you will, as I do, but it may stay around.
Peter