I hate the word proactive.

[Oy]

@The Eater in the Round

My boss uses the word leverage like smurfs use the word smurf. People, places, companies, ideas, actions. He leverages things against one another, leverages things with other things, leverages things around each other, leverages things against themselves, leverages things both for and against other things. And no he doesn’t work in credit or finance so he is not using that word for one of its only legitimate uses.

If I am ever in position where I do hiring or awarding of contracts I will immediately disqualify any applicant who uses the word leverage.

One time in the middle of a fairly informal meeting, I just said “Jeff, the word you want is USE. Not leverage, USE, dammit!” And he considered himself a programmer. Hah!

Leverage is actually a somewhat useful word, like incentivize - I can’t think of another word in English that expresses exactly the same meaning. It means using a small thing as either a lever or a fulcrum in order to get a significantly bigger result. It is not synomous with “use,” but managerese has made it that way, just as 20 years back, it insisted on using “utilize.” Apparently a word of one syllable is insufficiently impressive. :rolleyes: