What is the grammatically correct word from incentive? Incent? Incentivize? Help

120151

Do you mean the verb form?

I found 'incentivise" in over a dozen sites, but no clue as to its acceptability.

neither can be found in OED2+; both have been accepted by AHD4 (and are very recent coinages). take your pick.

Why not just "provide an incentive" or something like that rather than verbing the noun?

I'm just askin'...

oops... by take your pick I meant "accept or don't."

ewww, incentivise has no beauty...

Dear etaoin: Suppose it was achieved by gift of a rarely seen portrait of a dead president?

Suppose it was achieved by gift of a rarely seen portrait of a dead president?


I don't Bill, I don't find
http://makeashorterlink.com/?F6CB46172

any sort of incentive at all.

sorry, you guys lost me on this one. I'm going to bed...

motive :: motivate

incentive :: incentivate

Whoa! To provide an incentive could be to reward or even to bribe.

I'm not fighting exactly the verbing of incentive--just offering up other possibilities.

I actually like the ring of incentivate.
Like it much better than incentivise.

Reward, to me implies an after-the-fact transaction with no necessary before-the-fact component to it. I would hope I wouldn't have to explain to you why bribe doesn't work. Any of the words based on incentive could be used in a situation where the incentive is an absence of a negative as easily as a presence of a positive. For example, "Do what I say and I won't remove your kneecaps." That would tend to incent me.

It would incense me.

It would incense me.

That, too. I thought there might be a connection, but, no. Incense comes from incendere, to set on fire. Incent from incinere, to sing, sound.

incendere, to set on fire. Incent from incinere, to sing, sound.

ooh, I like this. there is a great piece of music hidden in here...

Welcome to you, Gasman.
I wish I had something enlightening to add to the marvelous info. above, but I'm afraid this time I'm just jabbering.
Sweet WO'N, good likeness to the word motivate. I have to say that Dr. Bill's post and sjm's response (you always catch on to things, don't you?) were so incomprehensible to me that I just passed right on under them--until I read WW's post and Faldage's response. Faldage, you and dxb both beat me to what I woulda said if I'd gotten here in time! Yes, a reward is after the fact. However, I think the offer of a reward can be an incentive. (Hey--could a deterrent to doing something be a decentive? You know, like the music at the beginning of a church service is the introit and the music at the end is the detroit?)
[dreamy-eyed]Incinere...yes, eta--think of miserere. But this would have to be happy music.

I actually was thinking of the two words: incendere and incinere juxtaposed. fiery singing...

Ooh! Yeah!

>(Hey--could a deterrent to doing something be a decentive?)

I suppose it could, but we already have disincentive, which seems more... decentive.

>(Hey--could a deterrent to doing something be a decentive?)

Wouldn't that have to be deincentive like reincentive or disincentive? Although I think recentive has a certain ring to it. So if you were really remotivated and had a lot of recentive would you then be recentful? Or if you couldn't get remotivated would you resent yourself for your lack of recentive? Or, if you were recently recentive but lost your motivation would you then harbor recent resentment for your lack of recentfulness? And now I think I need to call in milum to help sort this all out for me!

I think this is all getting a bit anally incentive, don't you?

fiery singing - would this make you in-cante-scent?

I really am disincented to bring this back to the top, but I received this from a subscriber today and offer it as an example of corporate-speak.

ADCannounce wrote:

> This exciting new
> program is designed to motivate and incent employees for their continued
> commitment and determination to return ADC to growth and profitability.


(personally, I'm incensed when I receive crappola such as this.. -ron)

(personally, I'm incensed when I receive crappola such as this..)...

Me, too.. Thanks for sharing, ron..

Of the suggestions that have been made, "incent" seems to grate less on the ear. Of course, you could always use "motivate", though it doesn't seem to carry the same implication of a specific incentive being given for achieving whatever the goal is. For example, you can motivate someone with supportive words, but to really get a sales rep to do anything, you need to incent them with a nice, fat, monetary carrot.

Mark Waddington

program is designed to motivate and incent employees for their continued
> commitment and determination to return ADC to growth and profitability.

At least it sounds preferable to a redundancy programme - the usual response to a drop in profitability.

>preferable to a redundancy programme

oh, ADC did that first, reduntantly even!

I shoulda guessed!