Business Slang: Incentivize
Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 by Sarah Chambers
Unfortunate coinages are turning up like bad pennies. And we seem to be making up words at an alarming rate.
“In the same way that people in social groups tend to wear similar clothes, people create slang and new words to show that they’re all part of the same group, ” says Grammar Girl. It’s about group identity.
Can You Incentivize Someone?
My introduction to business slang was in MBA school. My classmates started saying “incentivize” to mean “motivate.” They thought it sounded cool. I had a real aversion to the made-up word. Much to my dismay, incentivize seems to have made it into popular use. I find motivate to be infinitely cleaner. In fact, I’m committed to never using incentivize in any written piece again.
Is It Wrong to Verbify?
Is it wrong to create a verb from a noun, adjective, or other word? Is it wrong to verbify? Grammar Girl says she doesn’t object to verbifications (more slang) when they’re smoother to write and they allow for cleaner sentences. In fact, I just penciled in my edits.
Is Verbification an Internet Phenomenon?
I’m not exactly blaming the Internet for another social ill. I’m just noting that there’s a rapid explosion of business slang that is related to Internet products. You know you hit it big when the name of your product becomes the generic verb for doing something. Right Google? Googling, twittering, digging – I’m even used to slashdotting. They all sound fine to me. I’m not so wild about facebooking – maybe verbification is something to think about when naming your next start-up.
Now I’m going to get back to KnowHRing.
About Business Slang
Business Slang is a new weekly feature on KnowHR. We’ll run it every Monday.
In Business Slang, we’ll help you keep up with the latest slang to make the rounds in corporate meetings rooms. You have your favorites, too. Please send your HR and business slang suggestions to slang [AT] knowhr [DOT] com – we’ll feature some in an upcoming articles.
rick
Jan 21st, 2008
Sarah, you started with my fav business slang word. Do you think there is a difference in meaning between motivating and incentiving?
My sense is that a person can be motivated through either intrinsic or extrinsic rewards while they are incented only through extrinsic ones– usually cash.
Good to see you posting. Write on!
Paul Hebert
Jan 21st, 2008
I am with you 100% – see my post on the word “incent” – and the comments – very interesting.
http://incentive-intelligence.typepad.com/incentive_intelligence/2006/10/soul_mate.html
Frank Roche
Jan 21st, 2008
Incent. Incense. Coincidence?
This is going to be a fun weekly feature. I’m looking forward to many more…and you have so many to chose from.
Sarah Chambers
Jan 21st, 2008
Rick,
I always thought you were more accepting than I was. You made me think though. I have to admit that after thinking, the main difference I see between motivating and the word I swore not to use again is that motivating is a word I am willing to write… Thanks for making me think more. I always appreciate that… and, I urge you to click on the link in Paul Herbert’s comment where a reader suggests a different nuance for the i-word…
Paul,
We do agree. And I also found the comment on your post interesting. The idea that incent (forgive me) can be used neutrally without connoting something positive (and the implication that motivate is always positive) is thought-provoking. After some consideration, however, I don’t really buy it. I consider coercion and punishment negative forms of motivation.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments.
Sarah
Sarah Chambers
Jan 21st, 2008
Frank,
It’s fun… and it’s sad at the same time. There are so many great words to choose from, why do we have to make up bad ones to replace them? Lot’s of fuel for the fire.
Sarah
Frank Roche
Jan 22nd, 2008
Sarah, I’m the king of making up nicknames, so I don’t have a lot of wiggle room on the made up words.
But I don’t like business slang, especially when people don’t recognize how silly it sounds.
Rob
Jan 26th, 2008
And I thought you Yanks all loved your made up words!
I’ll be looking forward to knowledgizing your weekly blogifications.
Jason Rodriguez
May 2nd, 2008
If Merriam-Websters says it’s so, then it has to be true!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incentivizing
Kim Mason
May 5th, 2008
I dislike the word incentivize. It is certainly abused, and it’s doubtful that there is a legitimate use for the word.
However, I do think that there is one case for which it is difficult to find a suitable word, and so the word ‘incentivize’ was invented. The case is when describing a system which encourages any rational person to behave in a particular way, usually with a connotation that the behaviour is undesirable.
For example, one could say that poorly drafted tax laws encourage misallocation of capital. The word promote could also be used. However, encourage seems too imprecise, the kind of encouragement being unclear, and promote is usually associated with advertising.
I prefer the word ‘induce’ in this circumstance. However, this is pushing the limits of many people’s vocabulary. Hence we have a new word; incentivize.
Finally, Jason Rodriguez, Merriam-Webster is known to be a very descriptive dictionary. If enough mush-brained parrots chatter a particular word over and over, it will end up in Merriam-Webster. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m must leave for work to leverage synergies and incentivize proactive behaviour going-forward.
Kim Mason
May 5th, 2008
‘Motivate’ is also a suitable word to be used instead of the evil ‘incentivize’.
Dominic
Jun 13th, 2008
What’s the problem here? The English language has developed continuously over the centuries through invention and foreign ‘imports’. Shakespeare is credited as having coined many new words – he probably had the purists of his day rolling the eyes!
The beauty of English is its richness, and it will continue to flourish in the future – so lighten up!
mollymauk
Jun 27th, 2008
I knowledgify what it significancizes but I’m not sure we needed a nouniverbified word to fill the role.
Tony
Jul 15th, 2008
I just got of an webinar (a real word?) with some “think tank” consulants from D.C. They “incentivized” everything.
I lost the connect to the presentation because I was searching for a better word than “incentivize”. I like motivate much better.
Frank Roche
Jul 16th, 2008
Tony…incentivize is just the worst. A webinar…even funnier.
Molly…too funny. That’s a mouthful.
Dominic…yes, there is a move in language, but it doesn’t mean we have to like them all.
Irina I
Oct 9th, 2008
Kim, I agree with you. I think it is acceptable to use “incentivize” in an economics context, where “incentives” are words that are used constantly. It is just cleaner to use “incentivize” in that context than motivate. But if you are not talking specifically about behavior in economics, it is much better to use “incent” or “motivate.” Motivate is especially relevant when talking about organization behavior.
Chris
May 5th, 2009
This isn’t even a made up word, its been in dictionaries for at least 35 years it seem according to M-W. Is our language supposed to be stagnant? Maybe you should write a dictionary and it would be double plus good.
Bob
Jul 22nd, 2009
To hear “professionals” use the term “Incentivize” makes me bonkers!!! The verb is “incite” (it’s not just for use with riots!” and yet we seem quite content to allow the “make ‘em up morons” to subvert the language with whatever their lazy brains can come up with. After just hearing President Obama use “incentivize” during a live news conference, I feel there is little hope that the next generation will even know what a dictionary is, let alone know how to use one.
Traci
Jul 22nd, 2009
It irritated me to hear the president use the word incentivize. I was yelling at the television, that isn’t even a word. I had to put my television on mute just to get the closed caption to see how they were spelling the non-word. Then he kept using it over and over and it sounded so stupid!!! A lot of slang and made up words are put in the dictionary if they are used enough. Remember the old saying, “ain’t ain’t a word if it’s not in the dictionary and you ain’t supposed to say it. Well it is in the Mirriam Dictionary as well, does that mean the president and the other leaders should go around saying ain’t? They are supposed to be an example to the youth. Remember how they raked Dan Quayle over the coals for spelling potato wrong? How come, none of the commentators are willing to give President Obama grieve for using business slang? Are they so uneducated that they weren’t aware that it isn’t a real word?
AG
Sep 17th, 2009
Is saying we live in an incentivized world vastly different from saying we live in a motivated world? yes.
Kim Mason
Sep 18th, 2009
“Is saying we live in an incentivized world vastly different from saying we live in a motivated world?”
Well, yes, but I challenge you to tell me what ‘living in an incentivized world’ actually means. In this particular case, it’s utterly meaningless language. Does it mean that the world has an incentive to behave in a particular way? Does it mean that the world offers incentives? Does it mean that incentives are offered in the world by someone? Does it mean that the world has been turned into a mass of incentives? Imprecise waffle, I say.
At least by saying ‘a motivated world’, it’s clear that the sentence is waffle. This quote from George Orwell sums it up perfectly:
“If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself.”
This is why many people dislike the work ‘incentivize’. It usually means something for which a simpler and perfectly adequate verb already exists, or else it means nothing at all.
AG
Sep 18th, 2009
I am sorry I didn’t use a better example because it’s clear the one I used was simply a point of comparison – motivate doesn’t adequately replace incentivize and we agree. But, your point is taken. I wonder how people feel about ‘incented’..