h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dear Sirs,

Please would you inform your cricket commentators of the following:

'Predetermined' and 'premeditated' are not quite the same thing.

'Predetermined' implies the result of an action is decided by the fates in advance. If you say it was 'predetermined' that a particular shot would be hit for six, in some situations that would almost be true; but if a batsman top-edges a ball into his face by mistake, that probably isn't going to be predetermined.

The word you are looking for is 'premeditated', to explain that the batsman has decided to play a particular shot regardless of the ball that is bowled.

A premeditated shot may well fly over the ropes, or might end up splattering the batsman's nose. A predetermined shot will hit the boundary or the batsman's face regardless of the shot he actually plays, and you're getting a bit further into philosophy than a Twenty20 match can handle here.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think they should rely on practice and technique rather than philosophy and folklore.

Literally, 'non sequitur' means "these aren't the tools I wanted to clip the hedge with."

B

Predetermined premeditation pretty much precludes premitigating previous preliminary predominate prerequisites.