Pre- What?

There’s been a local commercial that has been getting on my nerves for the last few months. They sell portable buildings of some sort if my memory serves me. The thing that irks me about the commercials is that, when talking about their buildings, they refer to them as “pre-engineered.”

My initial reaction was something like, “I would hope the buildings are engineered before they’re put together. It’d be a little stupid to do the engineering after the things are built and up for sale.”

Imagine my horror when I looked up and found the word in Merriam Webster’s on-line dictionary:

pre-en·gi·neered
Pronunciation: "prE-"en-j-'nird
Function: adjective
: constructed of or employing prefabricated modules

Dictionary definition or not, it’s still a shitty word! I’m quite sure Merriam Webster was lobbied heavily by some six-figure-salaried marketing wienie.

And why do they use “prefabricated” in the definition of “pre-engineered?” It seems kinda strange to me.

Pre-engineered my ass. How about “modular” instead? You look it up.