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While nipping in to correct a typo (my first ever) in one of my posts, the mispelling got me wondering about the possibility of finding a use for it. So, I ask, any suggestions on how the delightfully BizEnglish "consecutise" (or, for our benighted US'ns consecutize), could be defined? I can't think of any way to incentify y'all on this challenge, but I do promise to be pro-active in prioritising my response to your suggestions.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Consecutize: v.tr. c^n-'sek-yu-taiz. To put in order according to some prearranged scheme.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pooh-Bah
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<<consecutise>>
To consecrate neckties.
Notes:
1) for some reason, these words are less offense spelled "ise" than "ize."
2) as far as I can make it, "to utilize" something is to change it into a utile. Of course, any use of a hitherto unused thing will do that. But what of misuse? And "to utilize" can only be misused. Is the 'positivistic' effect of the word reflexive, a self-generating proposition? Is "to utilize" not utilized in use? Or is its only use insidious, its one function to make useless "use?"
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Carpal Tunnel
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It's when ties do it by consent!  To consecrate neckties..."to utilize" something is to change it into a utile...I love it, insel.! Signed, Miss Use
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Carpal Tunnel
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To consecrate neckties..."to utilize" something is to change it into a utile...Unfortunately [cackle, cackle emoticon] IP isn't the first to come up with this. Not by a country mile! In the middle of the 19th century two of the "great" economists, Jeremy Benthan and David Hume, tried to quantify "utility" or "happiness/satisfaction". The units he chose to hold the value of happiness were called "utils". To learn more about this death-defying quantification project and its outcome, read http://www.csupomona.edu/~rosenkrantz/egr402/reader11.htmThen go out and measure how happy you are! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Holy cow, C.K., that's heavy reading for this time of night!
I gather that the page your link takes us to was written by the college professor in California? I find "the controversial consumer theory of economics which claims that consumer happiness is a function of the goods consumed..." patently ridiculous. If I own 14 cars, does that make me "happy"? If that number won't do it, what about 1400? If someone loves me, would I not then be listed as "happy", because being loved isn't a countable consumer good?
"Jeremy Bentham believed that one could quantify all types of activities similar to the way a consumer theorist does. There were four criteria: intensity, duration, certainty, and nearness." This I can accept, since he specifies
activities, though I need a clarification of his four criteria: his ex. was supremely unhelpful to me.
"Bentham stated, "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters - pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as determine what we should do." " This, too, I can agree with, as far as any examples I can think of go--though this requires that things be reduced to the most basic level.
Example: say that we knew that we would have our arms amputated by the act of pushing a child to safety out of the path of an oncoming train. Would we do it for a cat?
What if it was the seeing-eye dog that allowed a beloved neighbor to be independent? This brings in Mills' assertion that the judging of every action is inevitably tied to its consequences, and also the pain-pleasure factor.
For some things we are willing to endure tremendous pain;
others, not. Sometimes our actions are a result of having to choose between a greater pain and a lesser pain.
This made me smile in amusement: "Since our passions guide us (Hume) and our passions are to maximize pleasure, and minimize pain (Bentham), why not do so efficiently." Sounds just like an engineer! (The students of which this
presentation was written for.)
Mills' "testing" technique leaves, may I say, rather something to be desired: "This method is called the well-informed principle, which said that the best way to distinguish between higher pleasures and lower pleasures was to see what verdict a group of competent judges would render on an act. In other words, those who had experienced a group of particular pleasures the most would be in a position to say which ones were higher and which one were lower. For example, to determine what type of pleasure listening to Motley Crue compared to Beethoven would be, someone who is intimately familiar with the music of Motley Crue, and is also intimately familiar with the music of Beethoven would render a verdict as to which is the "higher" pleasure. " No further comment. The author goes into more detail on this.
The author makes a point later of discussing how some judgments of what is morally acceptable are specific to the community that has assigned the judgment. And his last paragraph reminded me vividly of our own little community:
"Mill believed that like an organism, a political entity must grow in order to flourish. Growth occurs best when there is a marketplace of ideas from which to choose. This marketplace of ideas would provide a classic defense of free speech. Since we want our community to grow, and since growth is dependant on good ideas, we must not silence any ideas. We must allow them into the 'marketplace' of political societies, and see how they fare. Censorship would thwart this purpose, so all must be allowed to introduce their ideas without fear of retribution. A community interested in growth will want the "cream to rise to the top." The best way for this to occur is to allow a free-market economy of ideas. According to Mill, if we don't do this, we would be like a Chinese ladies' foot that is not allowed to grow or we would be like a monkey that impersonates everything it sees, while having no originality of its own."
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Carpal Tunnel
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I don't really know who wrote the page I quoted the url for - it explained the theory quite well, which was all I was looking for. Hello, Mr Google. It is a simplification of extreme utilitarianism, but not that much of one. The idea of exactly measuring happiness/utility is, of course, absolute twaddle. You are usually unable to precisely gauge whether you would have one nuclear missile or 2.5 million ice creams. But it does provide economics with an historical basis for measurement using value series which was ahead of its time. Until that point, all economics had been philosophical - Smith's "invisible hand" being a good example. There were ideas, but no empirical evidence to back them up. It also provided the philosophical basis for the modern theories of utilitarianism - "the greatest good for the greatest number". Believe it or not, the work of Bentham, JS Mill and David Hume is actually the theoretical underpinning of modern market research surveys which use Leikart scales. Stop and think about it for a minute. When a market researcher asks you to rank, say, ten products and then indicate how good you think each of them is on a scale of 1 to 5, what are you doing? And what do they expect to get out of it? They want to know how much utility you are receiving from the products, i.e. how "happy" they make you. Is it so stupid then? In a way, the market researchers are trying to achieve much the same objective that the old boys were aiming for.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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But it does provide economics with an historical basis for measurement using value series which was ahead of its time.
Point taken.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Unfortunately [cackle, cackle emoticon] IP isn't the first to come up with this.Oh, Cap, Cap! I wasn't coining! Can't say I've ever seen "util" in Hume, because I don't enjoy reading him (while I do, recognize the importance of his argument). Utile floats around, and every once in a while, you see it bobbing. I do take responsibility for the nonce-sense it washed up in, though.  Thanks for url to excellent paper!
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