incent : a big SOTA

[Wilson Gray]

"Prevent" used to be one. But, with the shift of "preventive" to
"preventative" ...

-Wilson

On 1/26/06, Baker, John <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: incent : a big SOTA
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>         Well, let's see, there's abort, abuse, act, adapt, addict . . .
> .  Are you restricting this to back-formations?
>
>         I'm with Mark:  I hate "incentivize."  I'm not wild about
> "incent," partly because we have the perfectly serviceable word
> "motivate" that is often better.  Still, "incent" is not a perfect
> synonym of "motivate," it's a short word whose meaning is clear, and I
> don't personally associate it with "incense" or "incest," so I can't get
> on board with it as a SOTA.
>
>         FYI, the Microsoft Outlook spell-checker flags "incentivize" but
> not "incent."
>
> John Baker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Jonathan Lighter
> Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2006 10:22 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: incent : a big SOTA
>
> One more obnoxifying fact about "to incent" is that its users seemto be
> insufficiently fluent in their native language simply to employ a
> "functional shift" to create a new verb. To "incentive the consumer"
> sounds pretty lame too, but at bottom it's comparatively eloquent.
>
>   Can anyone name another verb that, like "incent," is formed by
> dropping the "-ive" from a familiar English noun ?
>
>   JL
>
> "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Mark A. Mandel"
> Subject: Re: incent : a big SOTA
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>
> Minority opinion coming up!
>
> I prefer it to "incentivize" [shudder].
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel
>
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