Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Bi-lingual English / French amateur etymologist and all-round pedant
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In my time in corporations, I’ve always heard “core competencies” (1.9 million Google hits)—never “competences” (322,000 hits)
“competency” is the noun I’m familiar with; it’s actually older than “competence” (1596 tvs 1632), though the newer “competence” is the preferred in Merriam-Webster’s College (tenth). (indicated by the fact that the only definition given for “competency” is the cross-reference to “competence”).
I was familiar w/ “competency”—He’s got some competency in math, but struggles a lot with science.
I think this is just an example of two alternate forms of the same essential noun.
This reminds me of the computer-industry phrase I hated when I worked at InformationWeek: “compute intensive.”
“Compute” is a verb—grammatically, it should be “computation intensive” bcs you do lots of computations.
But the term is established—if you tried to change it, nobody would know what you mean.
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Better late than never ! OK, I’m learning …
Since we’re on pet hates, when I worked in industry my personal bête noire was when our HR Director referred to ‘renumeration’ packages – meaning of course ‘remuneration’. But actually, since he spent most of his time firing large numbers of people perhaps the term wasn’t so wide of the mark.
Bi-lingual English / French amateur etymologist and all-round pedant
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Yes, renumeration for remuneration has been mentioned a couple of times in the Forum. I’m sure I’ve heard it in the wild, too. It’s a dandy!
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