Difference between 'active' and 'pro-active'

Question

Please help me understand the difference between 'active' and pro-active'. Is a pro-active person more active than an active person?

Usenet · Accepted Answer

ksr wrote on 14 Apr 2004:
[nq:1]Please help me understand the difference between 'active' and pro-active'. Is a pro-active person more active than an active person?[/nq]
Watch the movie Minority Report . It's about a futuristic scifi pro- active approach to crime: prevent it before it happens and arrest and convict the would-be perps for what they would have succeeded in doing had they not been stopped.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
For email, ehziuh htiw rehpycrebyc ecalper.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Please help me understand the difference between 'active' and pro-active'. Is a pro-active person more active than an active person?[/nq]
That's an odd conclusion. "Pro-" doesn't mean "more". Is a protective person more tective than a tective person?
When in doubt, try a dictionary:
Main Entry: pro·ac·tive
Pronunciation: ()pr-ak-tiv
Function: adjective
Date: 1933

1 (1pro-) : relating to, caused by, or beinginterference between previous learning and the
recall or performance of later learning

2 (2pro- + reactive) : acting in anticipation offuture problems, needs, or changes
I imagine the second sense is much more modern than the first sense, but I don't have a way to date that.
That note in brackets means it was a combination of M-W's second entry for "pro" and the word "reactive." (I thought M-W gave two separate headwords when they had two separate etymologies.) Checking 2pro:
Main Entry: 2pro
Function: adverb
Etymology: pro-
Date: 15th century
on the affirmative side : in affirmation
So, when you're proactive, you're taking positive action on behalf of something.
I will now yield the floor to all the buzzword-hating whingers who will sympathize with you in your dislike of this word.

Best Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Please help me understand the difference between 'active' and pro-active'. Is a pro-active person more active than an active person?[/nq]
[nq:1]That's an odd conclusion. "Pro-" doesn't mean "more". Is a protective person more tective than a tective person? When in ... the second sense is much more modern than the first sense, but I don't have a way to date that.[/nq]
OED2 gives a 1971 citation:
1971 A. J. R. REISS Police & Public ii. 64 Citizensusually bring matters to police attention...The police department deals with such requests as a reactive
organization...The police also acquire information by intervening in the lives of citizens on their own
initiative. In this capacity, they serve as a proactive organization.
Slightly earlier examples, from ProQuest:
A new look at human resources.
Mason Haire. Industrial Management Review.
Winter 1970. Vol. 11, Iss. 2; p. 17
The reactive rather than proactive tradition is strong in the personnel field.
Markov models and manpower planning.
Robert T Blakely, III. Industrial Management Review. Winter 1970. Vol. 11, Iss. 2; p. 39
As Professor Haire has suggested in the lead article, organizations have typically taken a reactive rather than proactive approach to human resource planning.

The coming crunch in federal government-business relations. D. H. Thain. Business Quarterly.
Autumn 1970. Vol. 35, Iss. 3; p. 23
For a variety of reasons, government is increasingly taking on (reactively and proactively) the job of
solving these central problems.
Since these quotes take the term "proactive" as a given, I'd guess it originated some time in the 1960s. The OED2 cite suggests it might have stemmed from police management I see a reference to a "police procedural" written in 1968 called The Bait by Dorothy Uhnak, in which the protagonist "participates in 'proactive policing'":

http://www.mysteryguide.com/hist-police.html
One book ( Homicide Special: On the Streets with the LAPD's Elite Detective Unit by Miles Corwin, searchable on Amazon) claims that William H. Parker, LAPD police chief in the '50s and '60s, coined the term "proactive policing".

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Please help me understand the difference between 'active' and pro-active'. Is a pro-active person more active than an active person?[/nq]
[nq:1]That's an odd conclusion. "Pro-" doesn't mean "more". Is a protective person more tective than a tective person?[/nq]
Definitely.
[nq:1]When in doubt, try a dictionary: Main Entry: pro·ac·tive Pronunciation: ()pr-ak-tiv Function: adjective Date: ... affirmation So, when you're proactive, you're taking positive action on behalf of something.[/nq]
Except when you're taking positive action as distinct from negative action? against something. I now can't work out what "conactive" means. Did the sage not say "Only conact"? And I haven't used a proceptive in years.
[nq:1]I will now yield the floor to all the buzzword-hating whingers who will sympathize with you in your dislike of this word.[/nq]
Kind of you. But it's not usually the words one hates so much as the situations in which people think they have to use them.

Mike.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I will now yield the floor to all the buzzword-hating whingers who will sympathize with you in your dislike of this word.[/nq]
Thank you.
Let us now consider 'core group' and its exciting new variant 'core team'. Is it mere coincidence that these public-sector buzz-phrases (aka 'govv') are more likely to occur on a Web page that mentions a shoddy British university than on one that mentions an excellent British university? Personally, I doubt it.
Here is (are) the data.
Column A: The probability in 10,000ths of encountering 'core group' (or 'team') on any Web page that includes the university's long-form name.

Column B: The Guardian newspaper's assessment of the relative worth of bachelor degrees in English offered by the universities. Ranking from 1 to 92, with 92 the worst.
Column C: The Guardian's assessment of the 'general teaching quality' of the universities. Probably 0 to 100, with 100 the best.

Three British universities were picked (more or less) at random.

A B C
Govvishness BA English Teaching
Hull 17.1 83 62 Southampton 12.7 32 75 Cambridge 8.9 1 87

It's a very small sample and the sampling method is less than perfect but I chanced upon this correlation while doing something else and as it matched my preconceptions I found it very easy to be convinced. Perhaps you will be too.
Incidentally:
A
Govvishness
Harvard University 26.4
All .gov.uk domains* 28.9
Harvard's ranking becomes more respectable when a more exacting definition of govvishness is used, viz. everything on the following list must appear on the same Web page:
core group OR team
skills
best practice
strategy
A
Supergovvishness
Hull 3.7 (!)
.gov.uk 3.1
Southampton 1.4
Harvard 1.1
Cambridge 1.0
We at Mickwui Targeteering are passionate that these two new tools, Govvometer and Govvometer Pro, will provide all in the education and local government communities with knowledge-based fast-track strategies for focusing opportunities on the widest core of skills and potentialities in a challenging and rewarding environment of change.

Be proactive, embrace the targets, get your Govvometer today.
*The phrase 'core group' (or 'team') is eight times more likely to appear on a page at Sedgefield's local government Website - Sedgefield has the highest level of local taxation in the country (and is Mr Blair's constituency) - than it is to appear on a page at Westminster's local government Website - Westminster has the lowest level of local taxation in the country. I didn't bother checking anything in between. Why bother? Truth is truth.

Mickwick

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Please help me understand the difference between 'active' and pro-active'. Is a pro-active person more active than an active person?[/nq]
Pro-active means anticipatory.
It means "jumping the gun" rather than taking a "wait and see" attitude, or crossing bridges when you come to them. It is the opposite of reative.

If you react to a problem or an event, you wait until the problem or event happens before deciding what to do about it.
If you are "proactive" you anticipate problems before they arise, and take measures to deal with them.
The value of each approach depends on the circumstances.

Wearing a seatbelt in a car is "proactive" - you anticipate the possibility of being injured in an accident, and take steps to reduce it. A reactive approach would be to put on the seat belt after the accident has occurred.

Indicating that you are going to to turn left or right is also proavtive. It allows other drivers to anticipate your movements.

But changing a tyre before you have a puncture is a rather useless proactive action.

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]We at Mickwui Targeteering are passionate that[/nq]
Nicely observed! You missed out "committed" and "responsive", though.
[nq:1]*The phrase 'core group' (or 'team') is eight times more likely to appear on a page at Sedgefield's local government ... lowest level of local taxation in the country. I didn't bother checking anything in between. Why bother? Truth is truth.[/nq]
But on the other hand, the only way I could afford to move to the City of Westminster would be by electing to live in a cardboard box, so the swings have their roundabouts. I'm vaguely considering, among others, just outside Bradford: would that be a mistake?
Mike.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]We at Mickwui Targeteering are passionate that[/nq]
[nq:1]Nicely observed! You missed out "committed" and "responsive", though.[/nq]
Further suggestions for inclusion: "changing needs", "from a(n) X perspective", "at a(n) X level", "driving forces" and "key actors".

Ross Howard

Usenet · Answer

Ross Howard infrared:
[nq:2] Nicely observed! You missed out "committed" and "responsive", though.[/nq]
[nq:1]Further suggestions for inclusion: "changing needs", "from a(n) X perspective", "at a(n) X level", "driving forces" and "key actors".[/nq]
Are you aware of the game "*** Bingo"? You prepare some cards with various buzzwords on a matrix, and hand them out (secretly) to the audience in a talk. The first person to complete a row or column is the winner.
I tried this at a meeting a few months ago. Our queer old Dean was quite surprised when someone suddenly called out "***!"

Peter Moylan (Email Removed) http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software)

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