We are branding a program that we've developed. This is an internship/residency program for new graduates, but we don't want to call it that for political reasons. Our Marketing Department suggested having our own brand for it...something that would connote going forward to the future. They came up with:

LEAP (Learn, Evolve, Achieve, Practice)

I really like it, as it conveys forward movement to me, and I can just envision the logo we can come up with.

So far the reaction of our committee has been positive, though we've nuanced the words a bit. I like "ing" endings, and "evolve" is a bit of a reach. Someone came up with: Learning, Experiencing, Achieving, Practicing. I do like that a lot. These new nurses will be assigned to a preceptor who will provide the with guidance as the new nurse gains experience and will develop from an advanced beginner to competent (Dr. Patricia Benner's stages ).

Here's the conundrum: So far all the committee members like it, except for one. She thinks the word "leap" conveys "risk."

What are your thoughts? This would be a national initiative, and I'd really hate to choose something where we'd be laughed at down the road.

Well, there is the old saying, "Look before you leap". Still, you'd expect folks to look into the matter properly before signing up for the programme, anyway. Come to think of it, that could be the title of a fact sheet describing the programme that could be given to prospective LEAPers. Maybe I'm getting ahead of things here, though...

I don't think that "leap" conveys any special element of risk, any more than "hop", "skip", or "jump".

I agree with Arnie. There are many ways in which leap is used as a positive verb: "He leapt into the lead" for example.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
We are branding a program that we've developed. This is an internship/residency program for new graduates, but we don't want to call it that for political reasons.

POLITICAL reasons? What the )(*!@%$!$@# is that!?!?!? Tell those jerks to get a GRIP! (Graduate/Resident Intern Program)

Asa, who hates the hell outa political crapola

I checked the OED for leap. It didn't say "to do something abruptly without transition," which is apparently what my colleague found in some dictionary; that definition would be awful for our cause since we're promoting a transition to practice program. However, some OED "unhelpful" comments I found included: "to go hastily with violence" or "to break out in an illegal or disorderly way."

However, I do worry about going into any word into too much depth or we'll never find anything. For example, this same colleague recommended launch, which we can't use anyway because a similar program uses it. Here are some OED definitions of launch: "to hurl, shoot, discharge" or "to heave, censure, threat or sentence."

Vorsprung Durch Technik, which roughly means "to leap ahead through technology" hasn't done Audi too much harm

OneLook does include "an abrupt transition" as one of its "Quick definitions" but then gives a positive example for that use, "A successful leap from college to the major leagues". I didn't look at the individual dictionaries listed on the page.

I think this is ridiculous nit-picking. I would never have considered for a second these alleged negative connotations of the word. It's just silly to think that anyone seeing an acronym LEAP is going to think of an organisation is taking unfounded risks.

They've got LEAProsy and their dangling participles are gonna fall off.

The one naysayer is being ridiculous. I like the LEAP acronym and what it stands for. For me, the word has positive connotations, in the sense of boldly moving forward, which is what these new nurses should be doing.

Hopefully a single sourpuss cannot sink the entire thing? If everyone else likes it, you should just take a vote and go with it--or is this person in charge, or does your group always insist on attaining complete consensus? Groan!

Good luck with that.

Wordmatic

WM, you callin' me a sourpuss? I prefer curmudgeon, if you don't mind.

Asa the Grouch

Nah, I'm calling the one holdout on the committee who thinks LEAP connotes dangerous risk-taking a sourpuss! In fact, when I posted this a.m., your LEAProsy comment wasn't even there.

WM