Soul Mate

I found someone who gets it! 

For years I've been waging a quiet war of desperation within the ranks of incentive and performance improvement professionals.  The war is about the use of the word "incent" and "incentivize".  I don't know how many times I've been in meetings and conversations where people in the industry use those words.  How can anyone take someone seriously when they use made up words to describe what they do.  Would you go to a Doctor who used fake words to describe the treatment they recommend?  I know they have made it into the dictionary (but not MSWord or the spell checker for this post) but not because they are correct.

James J. Kilpatrick had an article in today's paper (had to search online for about 20 minutes to find someone who had posted it on the web since my paper didn't have it) about using appropriate verbs and lo and behold - the word "incent" was highlighted.

Neither will you get far if you look at the innocent noun "incentive." It was born in the 15th century of good Latin parents. Five centuries later, some mad writer verbed it into "incentivize." Years went by. Other feckless descendants did their worst. This past April it bobbed up in the Corvallis (Ore.) Gazette-Times. There a state legislator remarked upon efforts "to try to incent" foreign corporations to move to Oregon. Aaarghh!

There you go.  Can we start using real words to refer to our own industry?

Comments

[Kevin Stephens]

Paul, I cannot believe that someone as forward thinking as you is such a fuddy-duddy about acceptable word usage. Language evolves over time, and the entry of a new word into common parlance is not decreed by any panel of experts from on high, but by the ongoing insistence of everyday folks in using the word to communicate. It's a more democratic than autocratic process.

Here's a piece that looks at both sides of the usage wars: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/04/03/dissent_on_incent/

Key quotes:

1) "You may find incent startling, you may wish it didn't exist, but if people are using it to communicate - and they are, they are - then it is a word."

2) "Though its critics call it superfluous, incent does bring one new trick to the table. It can be used neutrally, to mean simply ''offer a reward'' for a given behavior. When you encourage, inspire, or motivate someone, the connotations are almost always positive."

[Maru]

:) Next, we'll be saying "She's incesting with her brother; He incested."