“Used” is a perfectly good word. It says that the thing has been used. “Pre-owned” says something stranger: that the thing has been owned, previously, as if ownership were a kind of polish that had been applied and then carefully removed.

The trick is in the prefix. “Pre-” points forward, to you, the next owner. It makes the previous owner a stage in the car’s journey toward its destiny in your driveway. “Used” points backward, at the person who drove it for six years and spilled coffee in it.

This one is gentle as chickens go. Nobody is harmed by “pre-owned.” But Mamet’s point was that the small ones train us for the large ones. A public that has learned not to flinch at “pre-owned” is a public that will let “collateral damage” go by without stopping to ask what it means.