incentivize, incent

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  jacks_84

  -ivize would mean 'to turn something into'. Hence legalize means turn something legal. Idolize means make something into an idol. Hospitalize means turn something into a hospital; hence, you can hospitalize an abandoned retirement home; and, to hospitalize a person sounds awfully painful, and a little small when you're done. Incentivize means to turn something into an incentive; hence, you can incentivize a retirement plan or personal leave days. But, to incentivize a person would be illegal in most countries with pesky trafficking laws. Therefore, to incent--or possibly even incite--someone would be correct, and may even be legal depending on what you want them to do. more »

  LikeReply 51 year ago
  • 

    fj

    -ize can also mean "to treat in a specified way", e.g., pasteurize. The word "incentivize" is formed in this sense.

    LikeReply1 month ago
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  Mark Farnsworth

  While we have a strong tendency to assign value judgements to words, we might just as well criticize the water in a puddle for taking on the shape of the hole it sits in. Why is shorter better, or longer worse? In a culture where time is money, valuing economy in the use of phonemes and syllables seems unsurprising. 
  
  o the question is this: what do we really value in language? That 'less is more' like in some modern schools of literary thought? That more syllables equal more gravitas, as embraced by academia? That it stay true to its historical roots, like worshippers of Greek and Latin? That it rhyme or be expressed in iambic pentameter? That it not offend some set of sensibilities orthogonal to language?
  
  Language is the messenger, the medium for pulling the meaning out of my head and conveying it into your head. That is not to say that no standards can ever apply -- having no shared standard means that no communication can ever take place. But everybody benefits when we can step back and look critically at bad assumptions and maybe swap them out for better ones. more »

  LikeReply 43 years ago
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  Walter Witt

  Well if we can incentivize then I guess we can preventivize. Funny I can't find preventivize anywhere. Really can't we just say incent and prevent or do we have to add this dopey suffix to sound more sophisicated?

  LikeReply 143 years ago
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  Bryan Wilson

  When my whole life has been post 1970s, the word "incentivize" sounds perfectly normal and I have no problem using it. It's a real word. It has a different conotation than "motivate" (carrot-on-a-stick vs personnal fulfillment). And I'd never think someone using it is a "bad writer." more »

  LikeReply 63 years ago