Seriously, can anyone hear this word now without rolling on the floor laughing? This time, instead of just sniggering from my moral high ground, I decided to find out what it really means and how to use it.
So I knew what a lever is and how it works. I also knew the famous quote from Archimedes, the ancient Greek mathematician: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”
And that’s what leverage in its pristine state is. As business guru Stever Robbins explains, it’s about putting in the same force and getting a much bigger result.
“You leverage x to do y: You need a second verb for the construction to make sense,” he says. In addition, “When you leverage X to do Y, Y must be something you could do without X. And having X must make Y a whole lot easier. If having X doesn’t make Y easier, it’s not leverage.” For example,”You leverage small amounts of money to control a lot of money by borrowing with a small downpayment.”
So now you know.
But who cares about such subtleties when instead of boring old ‘use’ or ‘increase’ you can leverage your linguistic clout and enjoy feeling mightily puffed up with your own importance.
The A-Z of Bullshit, Hype and Cool Stuff is part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2016
