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

[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.