[Gllug] levering/Leveraging - Use of English

[Holger Duerer]

>>>>> "Alain" == Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk> writes:

    Alain> On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 09:13:35AM +0000, Tethys wrote:
    >> 
    >> Doug Winter writes:
    >> 
    >> >Their leveraging of Windows into the office software market [...]
    >> 
    >> The word for which you're looking is "levering". "Leveraging"
    >> only exists in managementspeak. "Lever" is both a verb and a
    >> noun. "Leverage" is only a noun (for now, at least).
    >> 
    >> Sorry, this is one of my pet peeves.

    Alain> Ahah - someone else who got & enjoyed a copy of 'eats,
    Alain> shoots & leaves' a year ago :-)

While I enjoyed that as well and am not unknown to have my own
language pet peeves, I disagree with Doug on this one.

For one thing he ignores that a language is not a dead thing that,
once defined never changes.  "To leverage" has been used often enough
by the marketing people to actually have entered general use.

In my understanding it even has a different meaning from "to lever".
To lever something means to lift/move that something with a lever or
as if with a lever.  To leverage something means to use that something
as a lever.

   Holger
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