Today, we’re going to discuss “prior to” and “following,” in the hopes that some people will realize they are not always good replacements for “before” and “after.”
“Prior to,” as Garner’s Modern American Usage notes, is “one of the most easily detectable symptoms of bureaucratese, commercialese, and legalese,” and “is terribly overworked to boot.” When was the last time you used “prior to” in ordinary conversation? It’s a fine expression, but it’s two characters longer than “before” and certainly sounds stuffier. Remember, our goal is clear communication.
But you don’t always have to avoid “prior to.” The Associated Press Stylebook notes: “Prior to is appropriate, however, when a notion of requirement is involved: The fee must be paid prior to the examination.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage also says that “prior to” is fine in “a formal or impersonal context.” In other words, you should use “before” when speaking of something more personal, like “Before they were married…”
Another reason to avoid “prior to” is that it should be followed by a noun or a gerund. You wouldn’t say “prior to they were married”; you’d have to say “prior to their marriage.” That also makes it less personal.
If you don’t like “before,” just don’t switch to another form of jargon and use “in advance of” or “previous to.” After all, few people will misunderstand “prior to” as meaning something else.
Not so with using “following” instead of “after.”
“Following dinner, he went hunting” could mean he had gone hunting once he had finished his dinner, or he had gone hunting to look for his dinner. “Following” usually evokes an image of things in a line, like baby ducks following their mother (and trying to not become someone’s dinner or after-dinner activity). While that sounds silly, think of this example: “Following imposition of the strict guidelines, the writers stopped using ‘following.'” Does that mean the writers stopped using “following” some time after the guidelines were imposed, or that they were obeying the guidelines and so did not use “following”? Is the important thing the time they stopped using it, or the reason? Sometimes, meaning matters.
As Garner’s says, “following,” when “used to begin a sentence or a clause, often results in a misplaced modifier and a miscue.” Even if a reader can recover quickly, preventing her from stopping in the first place is the better course.
“Following” as a preposition is relatively recent, as M-W says, and has been controversial since it was first noticed, around 1950. “There is nothing grammatically objectionable in the use of following as a preposition,” M-W says. “We do suggest, however, that if you use it make sure it cannot be mistaken for a simple participle.”
Or, as the AP Stylebook says: “Although Webster’s New World College Dictionary records its use as a preposition, the preferred word is after: He spoke after dinner. Not: He spoke following dinner.”
Then he went hunting.
Merrill Perlman managed copy desks across the newsroom at the New York Times, where she worked for twenty-five years. Follow her on Twitter at @meperl.