Was it postponed or canceled? There’s a world of difference and they aren’t interchangeable


It’s a pet peeve I’ve had for quite a while and have meant to mention it before. But I’ve put it off, postponed it as such. Didn’t want to cancel the need to mention it, just didn’t get around to it.

Until this week when a release from the state crossed the desk. The Kentucky Commission on Proprietary Education had canceled its meeting. Guess there was no reason to have the meeting at all.

Then the second part of the lead sentence stated “has been rescheduled.” Ok, so which is it? Canceled or not? It can’t be both.

Everyone thinks these two words — cancel and postpone — are interchangeable. Snow causes schools to cancel classes for the day, so they say. But aren’t they going to have to make up that class day? Sure. So they can’t just wipe out that school day, they can only delay it.

Notice a daily listing of Major League baseball games and where there’s inclement weather, you’re likely to see PPD instead of the score. They didn’t put CLD in for the score, they put PPD. Major League baseball knows it’s just postponed the game, not canceled, because the game will be made up.

POSTPONED — to put off to a later time; defer

CANCELED — to decide or announce that planned event will not take place; call off

Like I said at the beginning, I’ve just postponed bringing it up. I didn’t want to cancel it because that would mean I could never mention it. But I have. So I just postponed bringing it up.

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