Posts
CNN.com has a page entitled "Impact Your World." It states under the heading: Take action! When disaster strikes or horrible events unfold, these are opportunities to effect change. Bad things happen in the world every day. But good can result and one person can impact the world.
I'm taking this opportunity to weigh in on the controversy (!) over the use of the word "impact" as a verb. Dictionary.com provides definitions for both the verb and noun forms. The American Heritage Dictionary entry reports that the use of the word as a verb constitutes a "Usage Problem." I could not agree more.
While it is reported there that the word has been used as a verb since 1635, this word has colloquially and publicly occupied a perfectly respectable position as a noun. Dictionary.com opines that the use of "impact" as a verb is an attempt by public figures to gain intelligence-respect by using the word in new or fresh way. Again, I agree.
My objection to use of impact as a verb is NOT that the use is incorrect grammatically, because esteemed sources list the word as a verb. I object to the ego-centric audacity with which people claim a new use or create a word out of thin air ("impactful," for example, in a recent car commercial). This ego-pumping, acquisitive, and unacceptable trend of colonizing nouns to become verbs started at least ten years ago but proliferated during the dot-com boom/bust ("incent" is another one with a target on his back). I hoped that the bursting bubble exploded this practice, but it has not. Who is CNN to say that I can impose my will on the world? I'm not the target audience but I appreciate the brash, fresh, youthful, hip, enabling message this sends to a bunch of people who already believe they are entitled the spoils of the entire world.
Cicero
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
34 comments:
What's your call on "surveil" as a verb? I laughed out loud the first time I heard it, thinking that "to conduct surveillance" would be a better way to express the thought. However, the large bureaucracies I work with seem to insist on proliferating it. Is that legit??
Bowels and teeth get impacted. When one object hits another with great force an impact occurs.
All other uses of the word "impact" and its myriad machinations should be banned from the language and any writer who uses the word, when an explanation is called for, should have all her pens and pencils taken away from her for one year.
Impact is a cheap word choice by a slovenly thinker and lazy writer
i bruised my elbow when i impacted the world.
I'm having trouble with this as I had learned that "impact" could not be used as a verb, but now I have seen it in two online dictionaries, one of which I consider reputable (Collins):
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definitions/impact/forced
http://www.wordreference.com/definition/impact
not only is "impact" a verb, Webster considers it both transitive and intransitive. . .
To Anonymous ("bowels and teeth get impacted"), can I have your love child?
If I thought for one second that the people who perpetrate this crime could actually write and speak properly, I might be able to swallow it. Unfortunately, experience suggests otherwise. People who use "impact" as a verb are, without exception, morons. Or to state it more politely, as the father (hopefully, since I'm woman) of my future love child just stated, impact is a cheap word choice by a slovenly thinker and lazy writer.
If Harold Bloom (just to pick a name out of a hat) ever uses it this way, I will unfurl the white flag.
Death to the impactors!
I've even seen "impactfulness" [shudder]...
How ironic. An arrogant rant about those arrogant bastards who use impact as a verb -- about the "ego-pumping, acquisitive, and unacceptable trend of colonizing nouns to become verb." Whomever wrote this has a severe mental problem. To go from a simple grammatical issue to assumptions about people who think they deserve everything in the world is just nuts. And who cares anyway? If someone wants to use impact as a verb, is this really a four-alarm national crisis? Completely nuts.
Thank you, Anonymous (10/17/09) for your impactful comments. Sincerely, Cicero
Thank you for your drivel. You are a case study in "waste of time." Yet I'm sure everyone on your dissertation committee is on the edge of their seats waiting for you to resolve this international word crisis. What's the next mind-numbing project for the philosophy-of-ideal-forms word Nazi club? How about those morally bankrupt nitwits who say "very unique." Please, Cicero! Stop the madness! Whatever will we do without your penetrating wisdom?
impactability is key
Uh oh! Anonymous doesn't realize that "everyone" and "their" don't agree!
As my father always says, "Good grammar is free."
We must be more precise. It is the figurative sense of verbal impact to which we rightly object. That usage dates only to 1935, so hang the antiquity defense. More to the point, the figurative use is a vague generic usurper of real, concrete verbs. "To impact" can mean to tickle or to murder; which is it? Maybe the proposal will "impact" commerce, but will that impact be to inhibit or to promote commerce? Both are "impacts," but opposite in effect. To use impact as a figurative verb is to confess fraud. It says that I, the speaker, either don't know what will happen, or I know but won't tell, or I'm unaware that English contains 1,000 vibrant verbs specifying every possible tone and degree of "impact."
A la incent, how about my favorite colonized noun: parent?
When was "party" (a sociaL gathering) converted into a verb?
I am irritated frequently by the misuse of "unique".
Why is there a superfluous "of" used so often - as in "The best route is to turn off OF the main highway....."
People who should know better in the media repeatedly confuse singular and plural as in
"The government are considering...."... "Toyota are telling the public". The business is a singular corporate body.
MEMBERS of the government might be considering, but "the government IS considering..."
"Less" and "fewer"
There are not "less troops in...." There are fewer. But there is less milk in one container than the other one.
Another irritant to me - "disassociate"! Dissociate. As for
The latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style has a section entitled "Good Usage Versus Common Usage" (Section 5.202). In it they suggest that we resist using impact as a verb, except in a physical context. Its use as a verb to mean "affect" is hyperbolic, besides being widely considered a solecism.
How about your ego-pumping adoption of the name "Cicero"? Just a thought.
I know this started two years ago and I appreciate the comment on the correct use of the verb regarding bowels and teeth. And I quoted you.
here.
http://janasluncheonette.blogspot.com/
kudos and I think the name cicero is just fine. it has a slight trilling impact on the collective english major.
DID YOU KNOW THAT EFFECT IS NOT A VERB EITHER? MAYBE YOU SHOULD CHILL OUT ABOUT A LEGITIMATE WORD.
I completely agree with you regarding the use of impact. I would like to challenge your use of "entitled" in your first sentence. I believe you should only use entitle/d to refer to the title of something if you are actually giving it the title. Otherwise, something is already titled X. Just a thought from a fellow grammarsnot.
To Hey Idiot, effect can be a verb. You can effect change in society. This means to bring about or cause.
Impact as a verb reminds me of almost any speech given by George W. Bush. It seems to be related to a pseudo-military, football commentary mind set. All this tough talk probably comes from the fact that few people really have anything interesting to do anymore, thus they must go rock-climbing on cruise ships and play imaginary rugby in front of a screen.
some other nouns have been adopted as verbs in a disturbing recent trend ... reference, task, skill, offshore, oversight, parent, even platform (a chance to platform his views) # anon should be whoever #
Hear hear, Cicero! Hearing people use "impact" as a verb has always made my hair stand on end. And thank you, Anonymous #1, I could not agree more: only bowels and teeth get impacted. It seems that the collective IQ has dropped precipitously since I learned English.
I should say that it began a bit before the last decade. William Shakespeare quite famously coined many verbs from what had previously been only nouns. In general, in highly analytical languages, like English, the distinction between verbs and nouns is rather week. The Chinese languages are even more analytical and the distinction there seems to be merely where the word is put in the sentence.
I freakin' HATE the use of the word as a verb. Drives me insane. Here's my take on it:
http://itsyourlanguage.blogspot.com/2010/03/sick-up-and-fed.html
It's one thing to invent a word when none exists to express oneself. It is something else entirely to misuse a word when we already have a perfectly good one. I have never heard the word impact used as a verb when the word affect would not have worked. How about the worst of them all, "transition?"
http://everythingyouknowaboutenglishiswrong.com/sample-impact.html
...makes more sense than you do, Cicero.
Is there any hope of seeing someone address the dreaded double-is? It's everywhere - on TV, on radio. As in: the problem is is that I can't bear it; the reason is is that one should be enough.
That said (when did we start dropping this pompous turd everywhere we go, like a check mark on some verbal to-say list?) I love this blog!
I am very happy to read this article..thanks for giving us this useful information. anti viral
I identify as a grammarphile, and was excited to come across this blog. But I am confused. You must be aware that all language (English included) is the product of significant evolution over time. Isn't changing verbs into nouns into adjectives just a part of that natural evolution of language? Why does this evoke such a strong negative reaction from the writers of GrammerSnot?
Also, I realize that I accidently used an "e" in "grammar" please don't cut my head off.
My problem with "impact" as a verb isn't that it's inherently incorrect; the problem is, it's inefficient, requiring a modifier for clarity. A million-dollar grant impacts my research; a fire in my lab impacts my research. "supports/enhances" || "interrupts/impedes" get the job done faster and more precisely.
I care less about rigid grammar than about efficient, clear expression.
Post a Comment