The evil “-ize”

Add comment September 9th, 2009

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” insteadĀ 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.

Another reason to hold the “-ize”

Add comment June 4th, 2008

I recently wrote a column about the “-izing” of nouns to create verbs. This has been going on for a long time. Sometimes the results are good, sometimes not.

I recently saw the word “monetization,” and I’m pretty sure the intended meaning was “revenue,” “profit” or “making money.” If so, any of those three works much better.

Also, the verb “monetize” has its own specific meanings. It’s either “to coin into money” or “to legalize as money.” In a way, then, it is “making money,” but not in the revenue sense.

Simpler is usually better when it comes to language.