Arne Duncan, the new Secretary of Education, loves to use the word incent, and for reasons I don't understand it drives me crazy. Up until now I've always heard incentivize. Maybe it's the frequency with which Duncan uses the word that bothers me, as well as the policies implied by it. I'm getting tired of hearing for decades that the way to fix the problems with education is to incent teachers, principals, students, and parents, and the way to do that is with money. I heard Duncan say that even the school janitors need to be incented. Why? Do clean restrooms make better students? 😕
Incent is akward and imprecise. You're not going to incent/bribe bad teachers to do a better job. You can only 'reward' good teachers. You know the entire system of paying teachers is screwed up, when a first year teacher makes as much as an excellent experienced teacher.
I suppose the logic is that when teachers are rewarded for good results that provides some extra incentive to do the extra work in order to get good results. But I still hate the word incent, while I don't have a problem with the word reward, even though in the example provided they pretty much mean the same thing. I didn't really mean to stir up issues about education!
I am fairly tolerant of incorrect word usage by most of my "normal" friends, and (almost) never point it out in social settings. However, "irregardless" will set my teeth on edge everytime. "Regardless" is a perfectly good word unadorned, why make it redundant? The times I have heard it uttered, it was usually from a person I looked up to academically- and I felt "let down". Not to say I haven't let them down in some way, irregardless of my intentions. (sorry, had to)