The evil “-ize”

September 9th, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

I was asked to say a few words about “incentives.” An “incentive” is “something that stimulates one to take action, work harder, etc.; stimulus; encouragement.” It’s a noun.

So far, there is no generally accepted verb form. I’ve heard of “incentivize” (avert your “-ize”!) and “incent,” which is nowhere to be found.

The time is probably coming when all nouns will have been converted to “-ize” verbs, but the language will be poorer for it.

Is it so awful to say “the program will include incentives” instead of “the program will be incentivized” or some such concoction?

If only we had an incentive program to encourage creativity and discourage such language laziness. It could be the inventive incentive.

Entry Filed under: "-ize" words