Although the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq has been significantly attritted, ...
- Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, in today's Wall Street Journal, A10/3

What do we think of this usage? Does it smack of governmentese? Has anyone seen it before?

I've never seen it and I hope I don't see it again. Presumably it is related to attrition? I've only seen it in noun and adjective forms before.

Although it is said that any noun can be verbed ...

The AHD has it. It's a back formation from attrition. The Macmillan site suggests that it traces back to the '50s, but I've never heard it. Part of that strange Cold War vocab.

I'm with Arnie!

The AHD's sample sentence, “Pro-active counterattacks are a useful way to attrit the enemy,” sounds more like 70s bureaucratic gobbledegook, and there's probably an understood paradigm shift involved somehow, as well.

Wordmatic

Wow, that's a new one for me! It reminds me of a word I saw used the other day that I vaguely remember discussing here, "intuit."

Astrological attrition might be interesting but I'm just not intuit.


Welcome Meshal.

Attrit is yet another ugly sounding creation. I think I am getting more and more irrationally irritated by the likes of attrit, pro-active, paradigm-shift, for which there are established alternative and better words or phrases. Intuit is an older word, 18th century, and is largely replaced by the slightly more euphonious intuition.
Me prescriptive? No, never. You can attrit as much as you like, but impeccable good taste will emerge unharmed.

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pro-active, paradigm-shift

I agree with your other comments, but I can't think of any word or phrase that is an exact synonym for either of these.

Jesse Sheidlower had this to say when he worked at Random House. The word's in its fifties. Time to give it a little respect.

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Originally posted by Richard English:

quote:

pro-active, paradigm-shift

I agree with your other comments, but I can't think of any word or phrase that is an exact synonym for either of these.

These words and phrases have been around for about 40-50 years, and it is futile to attempt to oppose their usage. There are however, better alternatives, in my opinion, but obviously others hold different and perhaps sounder opinions. The instances I cited were only examples.
The AHD states Pro-active is acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty; anticipatory: e.g. proactive steps to prevent terrorism. I prefer steps to prevent terrorism , i.e. proactive in this example is tautologous.
Action in anticipation, even anticipatory action are alternatives.

Paradigm shift. Webster’s New Millenium Dictionary states:: 1. fundamental change in approach or assumptions, 2. acceptance by a majority of a changed belief, attitude, or way of doing thing.
OED says : a conceptual or methodological change in the theory or practice of a particular science or discipline; (in extended sense) a major change in technology, outlook, etc.

Note the several shades of application and meaning. So change in approach, change in technique, changed ideas or concepts are all satisfactory alternatives, indeed more precise and specific than paradigm shift.
But it’s all a matter of personal choice, preference, or even good taste??? :

For "proactive," I prefer "precautionary," "preventive," highly prepared.

"Paradigm shift" could be exchanged for "transformation," or any of the others you suggest, though I think its meaning implies a drastic or revolutionary change in approach--a scales-falling-from-the-eyes type of thing. Probably my biggest objection to "paradigm shift" is that sometime in the 1980s and 90s, when everybody was in pursuit of excellence, we were also being urged-to-death to shift our paradigms. Both expressions set my teeth on edge a little.

I read the Shieldlower article on "attrit" on the Random House site, and the article on "word" within it. Toward the end of the first, he says "attrit" has been around for 200 years!

We should all read the article on "word." Of course, it would shut down every discussion here and on OEDILF--but then we wouldn't have any fun.

Wordmatic

quote:
zmj: The word's in its fifties. Time to give it a little respect.
w'matic: "attrit" has been around for 200 years!

In that case, it's a sad commentary on OED that it hasn't managed to include the word.

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Originally posted by shufitz:
What do we think of this usage? Does it smack of governmentese? Has anyone seen it before?

To return to this first entry for attrit, but to immediately digress, I have seldom encountered the well-founded ' governmentese ' . A generic word, I like, is officialese , which was at the heart of Ernest Gowers' excellent little book ( The complete plain words , 1954) directed at Governments' civil servants who were typified by their long-winded, turgid or pedantic official prose.
Not that any noticeable beneficial effect persists in present day communications.

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Action in anticipation, even anticipatory action are alternatives.

But proactive is surely simpler and shorter. Since there seems to be no objection to reactive, I reckon proactive, as its opposite, is OK

I agree, Wordmatic, that Scheidlower's (I have always admired him) article on defining words is interesting. That has been an ongoing question of mine here...what really do we consider a word? Scheidlower says a word is

"a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning, is typically seen as the smallest such unit capable of independent use, is separated from other such units by spaces in writing, and is often distinguished phonologically, as by accent or pause."

Lexicographers decide whether the words should be included in their dictionaries. That actually is a good way of looking at it. "Epicaricacy," for example, is a word; it's just that lexicographers haven't included it in their dictionaries, for their own reasons.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:

quote:

Action in anticipation, even anticipatory action are alternatives.

But proactive is surely simpler and shorter. Since there seems to be no objection to reactive, I reckon proactive, as its opposite, is OK

Perhaps the muted objection is not so much the word but its incessant misuse, not least by the BBC, for plain active. Nobody takes an active part, it has to be proactive, with no anticipatory context. In short proactive is being flogged to death!

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In short proactive is being flogged to death!

I can't say I've noticed it - but I would probably agree. Any word that is overused seems likely also to become missused.

Any word that is overused seems likely also to become missused.

Like the, is, and and? Too and like, too.

By definition, if a word is over-used, surely it is misused as well? Perhaps not by everybody, but by many.

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Like the, is, and and? Too and like, too.

But overuse is not a constant. Common words will be commonly used; less common words less commonly used. But all can be overused.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:

quote:

Like the, is, and and? Too and like, too.

But overuse is not a constant. Common words will be commonly used; less common words less commonly used. But all can be overused.

Ug-reed. Amen!

"Proactive" is a term too easily tossed around without any real definition in most cases to eplain an action. Some like it; some don't. I'm in the latter column.

But what really bugs me is shouldn't the word be "preactive"? After all, the term "reactive" in the sense most common means to perform an action after another action has occurred. So to take an action beforehand seems to need "pre", not "pro" at the beginning. Do we not "PREdict" and not "PROdict"?

The word is simply, "active." The "pro" prefix is superfluous. It sounds pretty silly to say, "for every proaction there is an equal and opposite reaction.'

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"Proactive" is a term too easily tossed around

I so agree. I am as sick of it as I am of "innovative" (and of course that word is in my work title!) or "initiative." Geez. Can't we come up with some other ideas?