The word 'preamble' is correct and usable in written English.
It is typically used as a noun to refer to a brief introductory statement, especially one preceding a legal document such a constitution. For example, "The preamble of the United States Constitution states that the document was written to 'secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'".
The vote offered to "alter the constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with the Queen and governor general being replaced by a president appointed by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth parliament", and also included a second question about inserting a preamble in the constitution.
But there is no preamble like the new Hungarian one, and, in any case, the constitution has to be seen as a whole package, not as an assembly of individual articles.
But the preamble is not just national martyrology and kitschy symbolism.
The pain returns in flashes, sharp and sudden, but it is no more likely to catch us on 3 May than on any other day, when hearing the first few bars of Recuerdos de la Alhambra, or the preamble to an England-Wales rugby match, might overwhelm us.
John Howard made an attempt in 1999 by proposing a new preamble to the constitution acknowledging the first Australians, but the proposal was rebuffed by voters at a referendum.
It added that among other things Tehran had agreed to explain the document it had obtained most probably from Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani nuclear expert, on how to mould uranium in a hemisphere, as a preamble to assembling a nuclear bomb.
If the process of drafting the constitution was politically one-sided, so is the document itself: its preamble – the "profession of national faith" – enshrines an ethnic vision of Hungary as a Christian country and rather pathetically evokes historical grandeur.
Palin confused many onlookers with the directions taken in her remarks, which featured a freewheeling preamble of almost 10 minutes – half the time allotted to each speaker.
Howard's first effort looked half-hearted, the language chosen was contentious, the Coalition was divided, Indigenous leaders accused the prime minister of bad faith, and the preamble became mired in a political debate over whether Australia should become a republic.
Neither the republic nor the preamble succeeded.
But whatever the preamble, the Svyazinvest stake went at auction to a consortium led by a private banking group, Uneximbank.
