I have a meeting that I think should be moved to an earlier time. What is the best way to say it?
E.g. if I wanted to move it to a later time, I can use the word "delay":
"I would like to delay the meeting"
How do I say the oposite?
"I would like to __ the meeting" (to advance? to precede? none of them sound right)
How about "I would like to bring the meeting forward to...". This is based on an accepted antonym of delay "bring forward".
Advance fits the bill all right:
[ trans. ] cause (an event) to occur at an earlier date than planned: I advanced the date of the meeting by several weeks.
My few cents: In actual practice I would probably just say or write:
"Can we move our meeting on April 23rd on 7 p.m. up to 5 p.m.? I'm unable to make it at 7 p.m." or "Can we move our meeting on April 23rd from 7 p.m. to 5 p.m.?"
If this was a much higher boss (or one that required a lot of deference) I would write:
Would it be convenient for you to move/reschedule our meeting on April 23rd from 7 p.m. to 5 p.m.? I am unable to make a 7 p.m. appointment on that date.
To reschedule for an earlier time (or "moving the meeting up) brings up the possibility of changing the date as well as the time, in my mind.
The best answer has got to be prepone
I would like to prepone the meeting
or
The meeting has been preponed
Expedite.
verb (used with object), expedited, expediting.
1. to speed up the progress of; hasten:
I would prefer to have the meeting a little earlier.
Simple English works fine
just say "I am moving the meeting time from .... to.... or " the meeting time have been change to instead of
hope this helps
We typically say "push out" dates to mean a delay in date or time and we "pull in" dates to mean advance or "prepone" a meeting. "prepone" is meaningless in English outside of India."push out" and "pull in" are accepted terms when speaking to schedulers who use any tool that creates Gantt Charts.The tool automatically shows an item being pushed out to the right or pulled in to the left if you change the due dates.
Someone told me that one can also say
I would like to move the meeting up a little
(but I don't know if it's correct English)
Yes, although, prepone is quite commonly used in India, it is rarely done so outside.
With Indian background, I was taught 'Advance a meeting" i.e. schedule a meeting earlier than the original time/date slot is the correct usage and was discouraged the use of 'prepone'.
However, I think prepone (before/earlier + put = Put it before/earlier) is self explanatory, rhymes with postpone (after + put = put it later) and the words (pre and Post) are well recognised antonym prefixes. It is about time, it (prepone) becomes part of the global English lexicon. Importantly, it is crisp and concise.
Every other iterations/solutions are relatively cumbersome.
