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one usage will feel like fingernails on the blackboard when a similar term may not
Exactly. Incent bad, descent ?? incense ??
When I hear someone say that some word offends esthetically and that word is only marginally different to many other words that do not offend I wonder what the real issue is.
And if my question did have that sort of rhetorical bait quality to it, that doesn't mean I'm not interested in folk's opinions in the matter. I think you may be on to something with this "sense of identity and community" thing . On the Great Vowel Shift, were there no prescrips at the time who recorded their dismay at the way them young rapscallions were destroying the language we love?
Then, if you don't like incent there's always incentivize.
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In reply to:
When I hear someone say that some word offends esthetically and that word is only marginally different to many other words that do not offend I wonder what the real issue is.
When I read pompously intellectual over-analysis of the purely subjective, I wonder what the real issue is. I don't like the word incent because I think it's ugly. It's that simple. Sometimes a cigar really is nothing more than a presidential sex-toy, and sometimes people actually say what they mean without subtexts. If it satisfies your apparent craving for "meaning" behind something as utterly subjective and irrational as personal taste, I'm happy to add that I don't like enceinte, either. Wanna give me a treatise on the psychosexual signifance of that coincidence?
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boys, go to your rooms.
there's obviously been some incenting going on here...
formerly known as etaoin...
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pompously intellectual over-analysis
I was perfectly happy not knowing that you don't like enceinte, but then you were asked about your opinion on incent, weren't you? Still, the subtext to my bewilderment at folk's diatribes against certain words was curiosity. I'm willing to acknowledge that some people don't like some words. My issue-laden angst is concerned with the vigor with which they prosecute that dislike. Not saying that you exhibit that particular vigor, but.
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Then, if you don't like incent there's always incentivize.
“This bill will help incentivize everybody to solve that part of the problem” (Richard A. Gephardt).
I remember a black-and-white science-fiction movie from my youth where the space aliens had this sound generator which produced a noise to which they were impervious but which drove humans to their knees with pain -- perhaps an extrapolation of the "silent" dog whistles which were popular in the fifties. "Incentivize" does that for me.
Picture captured from the mind's eye: Space alien lands in saucer. Steps out of ship. Sees human (me) who may interfere with plan to conquer the world. Turns on intercom in alien space suit and sez "Incentivize. Incentivize. Incentivize" Father Steve (as a young boy) drops to his knees, hands over both ears, writhing in pain. Aliens proceed to conquer earth.
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"Incentivize" does that for me.
I agree, Pops. Why use the ugly and awkward "incentivize" when we have the much more simple and mellifluous "incent."
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My initial reaction was to hang out here with eta in the waiting room and watch you guys go at it, but of course I had to get in my 2c worth, which would be to point out that there's a long-standing and perfectly acceptable verb in Portuguese: incentivar. FWIW and all that.
eta, can you sing harmony in parallel fourths? Maybe we can incentivate them.
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>My initial reaction was to hang out here with eta in the waiting room and watch you guys go at it,
Sorry, ASp. My ire is like your CinC's sentience - ephemeral in the extreme. Fong and I have quietly kneed each other in the groins off-board, and all is now well.
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The verb incentivar is not commonly used in Português but rather the form "dar incentivo a" is more common ... I think ... although my Portuguese study is now forty years in the rear view mirror ... so I could be wrong ... possibly.
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In reply to:
The verb incentivar is not commonly used in Português but rather the form "dar incentivo a" is more common ... I think ... although my Portuguese study is now forty years in the rear view mirror ... so I could be wrong ... possibly.
And what's Portuguese for chutzpah? Whatever it is, you got it in spades, boyo, advising the ASp on Portuguese! 
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