Fact: leverage is not a verb. Merely typing it as such for the title of this blog series makes my eye twitch. Saying that you are going to leverage something makes as much sense as insisting that you’re going to floor the cat or sidewalk the garbage. Much of the confusion probably comes from the root word “lever” being usable as either a verb or a noun. However, the word “leverage” is a technically a noun built from the verb lever + the suffix -age. Looking at other nouns constructed the same way shows the ridiculousness of using this type of construction in place of a verb.
- Seep + -age = seepage
“The oil in my car seepages after I drive it for a long time.” - Shrink + -age = shrinkage
“I shrinkage away from scantily clad men when they approach.”
There are also nouns ending in -age constructed with nouns as roots. They sound even more absurd when used as verbs.
- “I’m going to acreage this land for a goat and bat farm.”
- “Let’s bondage these ladies of the night.”
When people mistakenly use leverage as a verb, they are often substituting it for “take advantage of” or “use.”
1a. “We leverage the tiny calloused hands of our child laborers to create your crappy little poopamajigs.”
1b. “We take advantage of the tiny calloused hands of our child laborers to create your crappy little poopamajigs.”
2a. “Executives at Missawjinny Ltd. plan to leverage their experience demoralizing secretaries to increase productivity in the workplace.”
2b. “Executives at Missawjinny Ltd. plan to use their experience demoralizing secretaries to increase productivity in the workplace.”
Remember, never use a fancy (and potentially incorrect) word when a simple one will do.
Want a fuller and rantier explanation of leverage? Leverage This!
Did you miss my post on the word utilize? Check it out.
Leveraging Misutilized Words (LMW) is a series in which I discuss commonly abused words. If you’d like to suggest a post, please send me a message.
Can we not create new meanings for words as our language progresses through time and culture? How about “google”? Is it not OFTEN used as a verb? “let’s google it”, for example. I don’t mean assigning random definitions to words that make no sense like all of a sudden saying that from now on the word purple will refer to a car or anything like that, but using “leverage” as a verb seems like a logical progression of our language. Just a thought… I do SO enjoy your posts about language being somewhat of a language snob myself 😉
Language definitely evolves! I think that’s the justification most people use for using leverage as a verb. The article I linked to makes a good case for why it is problematic, though, particularly the Martin Edwardes quote. He says, “essentially, just as whatsit can be used in place of any other concrete noun, so leverage can be used in place of almost any activity verb. This, of course, can lead to confusion (as is the case for whatsit): if an organisation is “leveraging a project” we cannot know, without other defining reference, whether they are starting it, ending it, or performing some intermediate process. But, at the same time, this obfuscatory aspect of the verb is an important part of its function and meaning.”
Why use a confusing verb if a clear one already exists? At least in the case of Google and the concept of googling, that word evolved to fill a need in our language. 50 years ago, no one would have had any context for the concept.
I was part of a group writing a proposal for a network, one of my group-mates used leverage about twenty times in their section. It’s more jargon for information tech people to use so that they sound knowledgeable and a part of the business. They like to red-flag the low hanging fruit then proactively synergize and leverage whatever is in their wheelhouse.
That was painful to write. *twitch*