"Leverage" as a verb

[Mark Mandel]

Leif Knutsen <vyer at EARTHLINK.NET> writes:

>>>>>
Maybe I'm too much of a purist, but I was under the impression that
using "leverage" as a verb is still something we're hoping won't make it
into proper usage.  Have I lost this battle, or are authoritative
editors still holding out with me?
<<<<<

So what would you have people use instead? "Lever"? "Pry"? Unlikely; just
try substituting either of those into dInIs's reply (below), and don't hurt
yourself wincing:

   Please send a list of authoritative editors to me for review; I'll
   let you know in a later posting whether they really are. I'm the last
   word on this crap; I leveraged myself into the position.

The metaphorical verb is formed from the pre-existing metaphorical noun and
has just as good a "right" to differ from the literal verb as does the
baseball verb "fly", meaning 'hit a fly ball', with past tense "flied", not
"flew".

                  Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist
            Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com