EARLY, MIDDLE, LATE - Need 4 in total, what word can I add?

Cafe Society
1

I have a project to complete and I require 4 words to generically describe specific periods within a measurement of time.

So, something like: Early Pleistocene, Middle Pleistocene and Late Pleistocene.

Problem is I need 4 of these, but Early Pleistocene, Early Middle Pleistocene, Late Middle Pleistocene, Late Pleistocene is clumsy.

Any Ideas?

2

Pre, Early, Late, Post ?

3

Doesn’t pre imply before the Era?

4

In that vein:
Initial, Early, Late, Final ?

5

I do like post though.

Early, Middle, Late, Post. The idea being this moment of time is not just a measurement but it is a topic and to discuss the topic there is a beginning, middle, end and a summation. Like the 1820’s are really just Post Napoleonic Cleanup and there is no point in trying to understand the 1820’s if you have not covered the 1790’s.

Thanks guys and gals.

Any other attempts would be appreciated, but that’s good enough for me.

6

Welcome! :slight_smile:

7

You can do the Maya -

  • Archaic, Pre-Classic, Classic, Post-Classic

North American sequence:

  • Archaic, Formative, Classic, Post-Classic
8

Puppy, middle, fat, old.

I get my escriptors from Cycle Four dog food.

9

Could also go Roman:
Kingdom
Republic
Principate
Dominate

10

For the Jōmon period in Japan and the Jeulmun period in Korea, you have
Incipient (or Initial)
Early
Middle
Late (and Final)

That’s actually a fairly common periodization.

11

Not exactly related, but I use these a lot:

  • First
  • Next
  • Further
  • Final

I don’t usually use them to describe periods of time, but more often points or phases in a list:

  • Firstly
  • Nextly (It’s a real word, but obscure enough to trip up nitpickers, which I love doing)
  • Furthermore
  • Finally
12

Golden
Silver
Bronze
(Optional: Heroic)
Iron

13

Ready
Set
Go
Finish

(or Win!)

I’m not wild about “Post”, because that sounds like the third stage is the end of the project, and “Post” is just paperwork or a debriefing… and all the impetus is over before the fourth stage.

14

The problem with Post- is that timeframe exists in the next time period. For example, if you say post-Pleistocene you really are in the Holocene. The same problem with Pre- and the previous period. For that reason, I’d probably go with Early, Middle, Late, End.

15

Stage One: The Adventure Begins

Stage Two: Electric Boogaloo

Stage Three: Wherein Opal is Greeted

Stage Four: In Which Our Intrepid Band Completes Their Quest and Rescues the Princess from the Pit of Despair

16

Yeah I’ve been turning that over in my mind as well, I don’t have much to work with. I do like END, but it’s multiple meaning makes it grammatically odd.

Early Discovery Era
Middle Reformation Era
Late Absolutism Era
End Revolutions Era

The last one doesn’t work, I don’t think.

17
  • denial.
  • anger.
  • bargaining.
  • depression.
18

Ancient, early, mid, late? (Though I think I prefer the “incipient” mentioned earlier.)

19

Right, but I need generic descriptors so Ancient Modern Age???

20

I didn’t know you were using “Modern Age” (or something else with a temporal word) in it. That wasn’t in the OP. I was going under your era names and assumed you’d be using a similar structure. Then, so it goes, my parenthetical about preferring “incipient” or “initial”, as suggested by @MrDibble would be what I’d go with.

“Proto-” might be another possibility if you want a prefix.