Poll: Disbenefit
Disbenefit |
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Votes: 740
Comments: 15
Added: October 2005
Comments:
| eywho - 1st March 2006 03:25 |
| In Town Planning sense, dis-benefit has the sense stronger and more direct than " defect" or "shortcoming" but weaker than "adverse impact". For example, a car park has adverse impact on the traffic flow but disbenefit to the air. Nevertheless, "disbenefit " is somehow not commonly use in daily language. |
| Williams - 4th March 2007 23:55 |
| This is not a word that appears in the recognised shorter dictionaries and is not a word that I or my wife (who is very well read) had come across in our combined 95 years on the planet, until it appeared in a local government consultation document about proposed town planning changes. If it is in regular use by town planners, it suggests that they live on a different planet from the men on the streets they purport to plan. |
| doug - 6th November 2007 16:42 |
| good / bad or better / worse. There are plenty of better words to show negativity. |
| Stephen B. Cohen - 3rd January 2008 01:25 |
| Used in Benefit Analysis: For example, a new, limited-access highway may benefit the highway's users, but may disbenefit the businesses that were along the old highway. |
| Englishman - 17th July 2008 16:11 |
| In my long life in the home of English I cannot remember a time when this word was not used! It is an elegant contrast with benefit |
| Laurence and Richard - 25th March 2009 08:53 |
| Disbenefit is the proper term used in economic analysis to mean the opposite of benefit |
| Economist - 17th September 2009 23:51 |
| It is a technical term from welfare economics and public policy analysis. When the government spends money (costs) on a project, there are impacts. These are called "benefits" if they are positive and "disbenefits" if they are negative. The term "disbenefit" was chosen in contrast to "cost" to make a distinction between what you spend and what you get. Outside of technical usage, "disbenefit" can sound contrite and should be avoided. |
| PM - 22nd September 2009 15:02 |
| The proper antonyms to benefit should be drawback or handicap. I suppose I'm not against evoluation of English just the needless creation of words when sufficiently precise terms already exist. |
| Matt - 12th April 2010 09:21 |
| I came across this website as I am currently writing a technical piece where I used the word ‘disbenefit’. To my initial confusion, Word 2007 immediately flagged it as being spelt wrong, even though I was pretty sure it was a commonly used word. This is my sentence: ‘This needs to be weighed up against the disbenifit this arrangement can have on cyclists’. The only other suitable word I can this of is ‘disadvantage’; nothing else seems to fit. So considering this alternative also has ‘dis’ at the beginning, I don’t see a problem with disbenefit. |
| Matt - 12th April 2010 09:28 |
| In respeonse to ‘Williams’ (4th March 2007 23:55) For someone with such a vast experience In English, perhaps you should try: ‘My wife and I’, followed by getting your tenses right. I’m sure that the fact that you have written you statement shows that you are not dead. |
| Frogmella - 15th September 2010 18:08 |
| @Matt: the problem is that you have spelt 'disbenifit' (sic) wrongly. |
| Sandra - 23rd December 2010 00:59 |
| Matt - that was not a very nice response, especially as your sentence 'written you statement' should have said 'written your statement'. |
| Sam - 12th May 2011 16:04 |
| Matt - Not to mention that "respeonse" is an unusual spelling for "response". |
| Bertie - 13th October 2011 09:23 |
| I have just come across this word and thought it made up. I think it is dreadful, disadvantage should be used instead. I googled disbenefit and found that it was first used in the U S in 1968, that says it all really. |
| K - 3rd November 2011 02:05 |
| Guys, it's a word. The purpose of words is to explain a concept or meaning and 'Disbenefits' does just that. I cannot see how you can derive an incorrect meaning from it, it is fairly simple 'dis-' 'benefit'. It representation does not mean the same thing as 'disadvantage' because an 'advantage' and a 'benefit' have slightly different meanings, hence the reason why there are two words. I would think critically about the site that says the word was first used in 1968, my Grandmother was using the word in the 1920s along with 'non-benefit' and 'ill-vantage' though they too were uncommon. What it may be referring to is the oldest known use of the word in literature, but if it has been considered an improper use of a prefix then it may not have appeared in literature as much as the less regulated spoken word. Instead of viewing words as rules for social regulation to be corrected in those who deviate from what a minority see as the 'correct' way, view words as tools to communicate for one another successfully. If it achieves its goal of communicating the meaning, whether a word, expression or gesture, then it has done it has done its job and should not be judge as better or worst then a word that does the same, or in the case of 'disadvantage', slightly different. |
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