>>"serialize" which has a whole different meaning to .NET programmers. (i.e to read out to a byte or character stream)

Charles, you're right.

If I had said "assign a serial number", I'd had been OK, I think. We (especially former GI's who stood in a line of inductees) tend to equate serial numbers with sequential numbers.

I perpertated one of the grammatical grammatical trangressions that annoys me most.. verbalizing a noun instead using the noun as it was intended.
This case was particularly egregious because is conflcts with another example used in .NET which, whille equally annoying, has the privilege of getting there first.

So, instead of saying "read as a series". (from seriatim (sear-ee-ah-tim) prep. Latin for "one after another" as in a series). . the .NET folks say "serialize".

The current one that annoys me most is "incentivize."

Mea maxima culpa.