Consequence, as a verb

[Wilson Gray]

On Jan 26, 2005, at 6:31 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Consequence, as a verb
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>> Eventually, i figured out the translation: "To consequence" was being
>> used
>> as a 1-for-1 stand-in for "to punish". (It was realizing that the noun
>> "consequences" was being used in place of "punishments" that got me to
>> realize this.) Is this a new(-ish) linguistic fashion among
>> child-rearing
>> types, or has this been bubbling along beneath my awareness for a
>> while now?
>
> Robert Hartwell Fiske's "Dictionary of Disagreeable English" defines
> this
> verb and provides a brief critique:
>
> <<Consequence: Idiotic for _discipline_ (or similar words). ... USE
> _punish_. .... / Not yet in many dictionaries, the politically correct,
> though completely inane and pathetic, to _consequence_ is increasingly
> used
> by psychologists and human resource personnel, themselves often inane
> and
> pathetic. ....>>
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>

"Human resource personnel"?! Shouldn't that be "human-resource human
resources"?;-)

-Wilson Gray