This isn’t some piece of young person slang. Or outdated old person slang. All generational slang is awesome, without exception.
It’s not a meaningless corporate buzzword that makes every office worker roll their eyes. No, it’s actually quite meaningful.
And, no, it’s not the name of some tech company or app.
This word earns its place on the top of the list because of how common this is. You’ve heard folks use this word. You’ve likely used it yourself.
The sinister and stupid string of symbols?
Incentivise.
It’s a useful word. It means to use rewards and punishments to encourage specific behaviours. Handy.
But just look at those suffixes, mate.
The suffix -ive turns a verb (a doing word, like “run”) into a noun (an object, like “ball”). Such as collective and directive. You can collect or direct things, because they’re verbs. You can see a collective or have a directive, because they’re nouns.
And the suffix -ise (-ize if you’re a seppo) turns a noun into a verb. Words like productise (turn something into a product) and visualise (make something visual). These are things you do.
Hence why “incentivise” is so catastrophically ridiculous.
There’s the root word.
Then a suffix turns it from a verb to a noun.
Then another suffix turns it from a noun back into a verb. Those two suffixes do nothing but cancel each other out!
Whoever came up with that was clearly incented to use as many letters as they could.
It’s lucky the power of language doesn’t come from elegant adherence to the rules of grammar.
No, the power of language lies in having people understand you.
And you know that communication isn’t about conveying information. There’s always so much more to it than that. Information alone can’t inspire, or break the tension, or clarify anything but the simplest of simple things.
Most communication happens outside the mere words used. That’s why a simple phrase like “I’ll always be there” can convey adoration, despair, a threat or hundreds of other meanings.
That’s why conversational hypnosis is so awesome. It artfully works at this layer of communicating, meaning you can inspire people, change hearts and achieve amazing results, all with simple conversations.
It’s one of the most incredible skills around.
And you can learn it, in a little slice of paradise, right here: