aftcast

English

Etymology

From aft +‎ cast, modelled on forecast. See fore and aft.

Noun

aftcast (plural aftcasts)

1. (informal) A kind of analysis which takes an event which has already happened, or is assumed to happen, and studies the causes which could have led up to that event.
   • 1977, Ithiel de Sola Pool, Craig Decker, Stephen Dizard, Kay Israel, Pamela Rubin, Barry Weinstein, “Foresight and Hindsight: The Case of the Telephone”, in Ithiel de Sola Pool, editor, The Social Impact of the Telephone, Cambridge, M.A., London: The MIT Press, →ISBN, page 151:

     We should not be too harsh about forecasters, however; we have the benefit of hindsight now, yet it is not much easier to answer the questions about the past than about the present or future. Postdiction is almost as hard as prediction; aftcasts almost as hard as forecasts.

Verb

aftcast (third-person singular simple present aftcasts, present participle aftcasting, simple past and past participle aftcasted)

1. (informal) To make an aftcast.
   • 1992, Mack Hanan, Profits Without Products: How to Transform Your Product Business Into a Service, New York, N.Y. […]: Amacom, →ISBN, page 80:

     Backwards planning relieves you of some of the superhuman assumptions that are involved in traditional forecasting. It substitutes aftcasting for forward planning by causing you to look backwards from your objectives to ask the question: What must have had to have happened in order for each of our successive planned milestones to have been reached?

See also

• aftercast
• backcast
• postdiction

 

References

• Paul McFedries (1996–2024) “aftcast”, in Word Spy, Logophilia Limited.