Leverage

[jack]

This words irks most people I know. Indeed, everyone will know that the title means I'm going to talk about the *word "leverage", instead of thinking I might have leverage on something.

First we had 'lever', a verb and noun. And then 'leverage', refering the the act of levering. And then 'leverage', the verb. When you have leverage, you're magnifying the effect of something, when used literally, your strength becoming more strength (at a cost of distance) to move something.

But it occurs to me, I think the verbs are always used

* To lever something you want to move
* To leverage something you have

Isn't it so? I lever this door open. I leverage my minute-but-real trade advantage.

So the new verb *does* have a niche outside of finance. Of course, *most* of the time it's used when 'use' would be just as well, since there isn't a clear trade off, you just mean "use most effectively", but in theory, it should have a specific meaning not covered by any other word.

Comments

[angoel.livejournal.com]

'Leverage' is different from 'use', in that 'leverage' largely means 'use', but also carries the implication that what you are using is something that only you, or a few other people have.

Therefore, when you say 'We're going to leverage our expertise in realtime multimedia' rather than 'We're going to use our expertise in realtime multimedia', it is clear to the person that you're talking to that you believe this is a relatively unique selling point, and that it's uniqueness is exploitable.

This implication also allows 'leverage' to be applied to areas where 'use' cannot be. For example 'We need to get some leverage on Mr Black to close this deal', referring to blackmail material. But that's a whole different story.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. That is true, isn't it. OK, chalk up another justification!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Indeed, leverage (verb) has connotations more similar to exploit than use to me. Mr Black is experiencing leverage (noun) there so I don't think it's quite the same discussion anyway...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

...but I don't think you can leverage everything you can exploit. You can exploit or leverage an advantage but you can only exploit a person.

[angoel.livejournal.com]

Yes - I agree that exploit is close.

Exploit, however, carries implications that you are somehow using up the item that you are exploiting, which leverage does not. Compare 'We're going to leveage our first class workforce' with 'We're going to exploit our first class workforce'.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I have the using-up implication of exploit. I think I could exploit the position of my castle at the top of a hill to dominate the surrounding lands, for instance.

[chess]

'exploit' does have negative connotations, though.

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose that I've heard a lot of sentences that include both "leverage" and "monopoly".

I suppose that there's a force-multiplying effect involved with this: rather than just using your monopoly advantage to put your prices up on the thing that you have a monopoly on, you multiply it by bringing your monopoly advantage into fields where you don't have a pre-existing monopoly. And as with other forms of leverage, there's a downside (Mechanical: high force, low speed / high speed, low force, Financial: (e.g. buying shares on margin) high potential profit, high risk): a greater risk that people will get pissed off, and that what you are doing will be found to be illegal.