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Hydra Offline OP
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Some of these are bad; really, really bad.

BBC: 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate

AgghhhhhHHHHHH!

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I don't have the time to address this fully right now; I'll just say that I really like number 33: 'You can't have your cake and eat it, so you have to step up to the plate and face the music.' What it's doing on this list is beyond me. It's not like you're going to hear this from every boss in every rah-rah speech at every company. It's just a wonderfully mixed metaphor.

Whenever I see one of these extended pet parades I just wonder what the peevologist could be doing constructively rather than playing Caligula vs. the Waves.

I do have to agree that, however you spell it, incentivize is silly when we have the perfectly good incent with the same meaning.

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Perhaps if you had to work under the kinds of people who use these sorts of expressions...

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Did you mean Canute? Or is Caligula v The Waves from Dumas' play or something? (which I've never read)

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 Originally Posted By: Faldage
the perfectly good incent

What's this sandalwood doing in my office? I'm incensed at your attempts to encense me with incense! I specifically requested Chanel No. 5 or L'Air du Temps - you know, real French benefits! And longer coffee breaks so I can have more perks!

You receive incentives to incentivize you. What do you get when you're incented? Incents? Incention?

Incent only gets 4 hits in onelook - three dictionaries say "to incentivize" and Word Detective

Last edited by Myridon; 06/25/08 04:33 PM.
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Here's a fun game for you to play at your next business meeting.

http://isd.usc.edu/~karl/Bingo/

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 Originally Posted By: Myridon
 Originally Posted By: Faldage
the perfectly good incent

You receive incentives to incentivize you. What do you get when you're incented? Incents? Incention?

Incent only gets 4 hits in onelook - three dictionaries say "to incentivize" and Word Detective


You get directives to direct you. Incent gets 460,000 ghits; incentivize gets 242,000. So sucks to the Word Detective.

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[said with best Fraunsh accent] You are ze very seely peeple, y'know...

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Yahr muzzer wuz a hamstair and yahr fazzer smelt of eldairbarries...

and go ayway, or I shall taunt yuu a secohnd tahm...

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 Originally Posted By: Faldage
Incent gets 460,000 ghits; incentivize gets 242,000.

Google does some odd things, but it's particularly odd when you try to compare searches on similar terms.
As you say
incent 456,000
incentivize 237,000
but
incent -incentivize 851,000
The number of pages with "incent" - the number of pages that also have "incentivize" is much greater than the number of pages with "incent" WHAT?
so (456,000 - X) = 851,000
X = -395,000
Likewise:
incentivize -incent = 574,000
(237,000 - Y) = 574,000
Y = -337,000

Yet
incentivize incent = 15,100
+incentivize +incent = 998
which is nowhere near 395,000 or 337,000.

Last edited by Myridon; 06/26/08 04:25 PM.
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