incent : a big SOTA

Wed Jan 25 18:05:50 UTC 2006

The sound, appearance, and associations of the word all obnoxicate me.  It sounds like "to incense," which means almost the opposite; it looks like "incest," which is repugnant; and it reminds me of other functionally illiterate coinages that warn me, who should be incented to pay attention, that the user of such coinages probably wants to sound smarter than heorshe is.  (A few hundred Googlits on "heorshe.")

  "Provide an incentive," "offer an incentive," "present with an incentive," etc., are all simple and lucid ways of expressing any idea covered by "incent." And if those idioms contain too many syllables for one's mind to process, said mind may choose the minutely less regrettable "incentivize." At least that looks like a verb.

  BTW, Google returns hits on "incentify" and "incentivate" too.  Also on "obnoxicator."

  JL

"Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Baker, John"
Subject: Re: incent : a big SOTA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are your feelings in this matter founded on a belief that there
is a preexisting and entirely satisfactory term with this meaning, on a
prejudice against back-formations or neologisms, or on esthetic
considerations relating to the sound, appearance, or associations of the
word?

John Baker

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 9:46 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: incent : a big SOTA

How many are aware that English contains a verb "to incent," meaning "to
provide with and incentive" ? I sure didn't, at least not until
Governor George Pataki (R. -N.Y.) promised a few minutes ago to "incent
consumers" to switch to ethanol.

Making the situation far more dire is that my OED colleagues can prove
that "incent" has been in print at least since 1977. After nearly
thirty years, we should not be surprised to learn that even little
children, somewhere, are learning to lisp it. One can only prophesize
that these little children will soon be incented to grow the economy.

Won't you join me in taking the Pledge never to use the discrete
phonemic sequence "incent" in speech or writing as long as you live, and
beyond if possible ? And won't you do your best to scourge and
discomfit the misguided souls who do use it ?

JL

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