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Incensed by “Incent”

My first business writing job was with an incentive motivation company. It was a fairly new concept back then—the idea of a tangible reward for performance over a specified period of time.  Studies were just beginning to show that cash bonuses backfired, because people started thinking of them as a standard part of their compensation, […]

Rundown Premises

Ironically, the misuse of “premise” to mean a dwelling or habitation is based on an erroneous premise: One house, two houses; one business, two businesses. But there is no singular of “premises” when it refers to land and buildings. The word “premise,” meaning “a proposition that supports a conclusion,” can be plural—“premises.” Both words probably […]