This is my intern this summer. His name is Luke Fischer. Luke is going to be a senior at St. John’s University this fall. He has an interest in becoming a city manager. I hope he’s still interested in that field after spending his summer with me. Luke is a pretty good guy. He has one major flaw however, and that is his wholesale rejection of my frequent use of the word “incent”. Luke is a young man, but he is a stodgy English Language Traditionalist.
Luke wants me to use the word “incentivize”. Can’t do it. In my opinion, I don’t need to do it either. The American Heritage Dictionary Online – 4th Addition – does indeed list the word incent as a word. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary also lists the word incent as a transitive verb. Both dictionary sources also list incentivize, but lists incent as a separate and distinct listing.
Eight years ago I read a book that influenced my view of the English language. That book was “The Year 1000: What life was like at the turn of the First Millennium.” It was written by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger. Good book. I recommend it. It was an excellent look back to life on the island we now refer to as England in 1000, which at the time was an island of warring tribes of Saxons, Angles, Danes, Vikings and Celts.
There was an English language in use at that time in England, but it was in its earliest stages of development. Lacey & Danziger devote considerable effort in their book to comparing and contrasting the English language of 1000 with the English language in use just 1,000 years later in 2000. They conclude that despite the fact that we speak the same language in 2000 as they did in 1000, it is so different today that it would be unintelligible to a person living in 1000, and vice-versa.
English language is a “living” language, in a metaphorical sense. There have always been new words added to the language. There have always been words that become obsolete and fall out of general use. English is a populist language. Unlike French or Latin, it has never been formally controlled by a central authority, or a ruling class or an intelligentsia. The language is controlled by the people who use it. Dictionaries, while they may be the formal repository of our language, react and respond to the use of the language, not the other way around.
In my view, that’s the way it ought to be. As long as my use of the English language successfully communicates ideas and concepts to my intended audience, who has the right or obligation to correct me? America is all about “what works, is what’s right”. I believe that is true with my language as well.
Therefore, I will continue to use the word incent as much as I want to. So there.
