The 40 tells · Words · No. 06
Why "leverage" makes writing sound machine-made
Flagged "Leverage"
"Leverage" and "harness" are "use" wearing a suit. Leverage AI, harness the power of data. They make a sentence longer and more abstract without adding anything.
In finance, leverage has a real meaning (borrowing). Outside it, the word mostly signals that the writer wanted to sound strategic.
Before
Leverage cutting-edge analytics to harness the power of your customer data.
After
See which customers bought twice, and which ones haven't come back in 90 days.
The fix
Swap it for the concrete thing. What does it do, in words a buyer can check?
Write this instead
- use
- draw on
- build on
- or cut the verb and say the result
What the checker matches
Any of these, in any case:
- leverage
- leverages
- leveraging
- leveraged
- harness
- harnesses
- harnessing