What is "gcc compatibility mode" and how to disable it?

Hello,

I am - so far - quite unsuccessful in using icpc 2016 while making boost 1.59.0. I did manage to compile a helloworld program BTW.

I am using Linux Mint 17.3

My question is: icpc shows

 ~ $ icpc -v
icpc version 16.0.0 (gcc version 3.2.0 compatibility)

What does the "compatibility mode" mean? It seems that when building bjam in order to install boost 1.59.0 I get errors because "gcc is too old" as they say over in the boost mailinglist. As a matter of fact, my gcc / g++ are version 4.8.4!

I didn't find anything useful when googling..

What's wrong? Thanks a lot in advance for any hint!

Andreas