I’m in a training class this week where we are discussing adherence to governmental and industry standards such as HIPAA, GLBA, Sarbox, etc. yeah, I know, sounds exciting, right?
Anyway, the dude presenting this morning is just in love with the word “compliancy”. It is really bugging me, because I can’t figure out why he doesn’t just say “compliance”. It seems like every sentence he has said, the word compliance fits, and, I don’t know, would just sounds better. Compliancy sounds like a word someone made up. A quick google-fu basically defines compliancy as COMPLIANCE.
So why not just use the source word?
Just bugging me. Why use the word compliancy instead of compliance?
The dude is a government-bureaucrat nerd who is fucking up our precious English language. He probably says “utilization” and uses lots and lots of acronyms too, right?
Very broadly, and with many exceptions, the -ancy suffix indicates quality, state, or condition, whereas the -ance suffix indicates action or process. So, infancy, the quality or state of being an infant; bouyancy, the quality of being bouyant; vacancy, the quality of being vacant. But assistance, that which assists someone or something; riddance that which rids us of something.
But this distinction emerged quite late on, and at lot of words which came into the language before it did do not follow the “rule”. So diligence, elegance and prudence might be diligency, elegancy and prudency if they had made it into the language later than they did.
If we are talking about the action of complying then we would expect compliance; “his compliance with the regulations was less than satisfactory”. But if are talking about the quality or state of being compliant, then we would expect compliancy; “his compliancy was shown in his failure to object to the string of lovers taken by his wife”.
So, here’s the thing. I kinda know the guy, he works in my department. I honestly don’t think he is trying to use a word because it sounds fancy, I think he is just a bit of a dumbass. I think he has convinced himself that compliancy IS the only correct word that fits.
According to dictionary.com, and other sites, those two words are perfectly interchangeable. It just sounds wrong to my ear.
I think UDS’ distinction is not nearly so strong as presented. For example, I do think of diligence as an action or process. (Consider “due diligence”–that’s something you have to do.)
“Due diligence” is a jargon term, though. Strictly speaking, “all due diligence” is a quality you bring to bear in the investigations you make when, e.g., preparing an SEC filing. What you do, though, is the investigation, not the diligence.
When lawyers talk about doing due diligence, that’s just a shorthand for doing investigations, or drafting documents, or whatever, with the degree of diligence required to comply with the relevant statute/to avoid incurring liability/etc.
But, yes, the “rule” (and I use the inverted commas deliberately) is a very weak one. There are probably lots of qualities, states, etc that conventionally get the -ance/-ence suffix (diligence being one).
But perhaps the reverse is less true? There aren’t that many actions/processes that get the -ancy/-ency suffix. If so, that would explai why compliancy in the sense of “the act of complying with applicable standards” sounds odd to the OP.