Yet again, the language usage of my contemporaries has me fuming. (Did I mention that I’m grading lots of essays these days?) Today’s rant is on the correct (and otherwise) usage of the word impact. This word was a question on the quiz that was one of my early posts, but since people aren’t paying attention, I’m giving it a second whack.
Impact means a striking or a collision. As a verb, it to strike or to collide. Some object to using impact as a verb at all, but that doesn’t bother me. What matters is that whenever it is used, impact must involve a blow.
How is the word used incorrectly? Here’s an example, based on many such sentences that I have suffered over the years:
The extension of unemployment benefits will have a positive impact on the economy of the year to come.
Is that so? I can’t imagine how, since our economy doesn’t need any more damage. If a car impacts a wall, neither comes out feeling healthy. As Sancho Panza observed, whether the stone hits the pot or the pot hits the stone, it’s bad for the pot. I fail to see how any impact can be beneficial (positive is a subject for another day) to the object that is struck. Yes, there are situations in which a slap to the face is just what is needed, but we have to be careful about slapping those who deserve it.
The word that these sloppy people need is effect. Other possibilities are influence, alteration, change, and so forth. The problem is that such users of our language want to bellow, but what they have to say warrants only a squeak.
It’s too bad that impact has been abused. I acknowledge that we ought to be able to speak of the emotional impact of a song or movie, for example. Sometimes, emotions can feel like a blow to the chest, and in more careful days, impact was the right word to describe them. Now, though, we have to refrain from using the word, even when we do so correctly, because few seem to understand what it actually means.
Perhaps we can save the situation. Having read this, you now know how to use impact in the proper way. If you don’t, one of these days, Alice, one of these days. . . POW! Right in the kisser!
Greg ~
My Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2004) gives EFFECT as the second definition for the verb IMPACT.
Like it, or not, language is fluid.
Reading your blogs has resulted in such a positive impact to my use of the English language. I used to have so many issues with grammar, but not anymore.
I accept that language changes, and I even accept that sometimes, such changes are needed. When Europeans came to the New World, they found raccoons, hammocks, and maize. Those were new and required new words to describe them.
On the other hand, many changes are the result of mere laziness or blustering. We don’t need “impact” to mean “effect.” We already had a word for that. Dictionaries accept any change because the editorial policy these days is to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, but I see it as my job to elevate the language.
I see students using language in a sloppy way, and when I ask them what they mean, I get blank stares. That’s my main concern. Language that is well chosen has influence, while poor usage just gets ignored. That, of course, leads to more outrageous verbal shouting.
Do note that I’m not addressing any problems in the writing of my current readers. All of you express yourselves with strong voices, and that is essential to good writing.
Feel free to delete the first of the two comments above . . . or your readers will believe that I’m unnecessarily redundant and repetitive.
I agree with you 100% on the comment you just posted. Writers should say what they mean to say . . . and be able to explain what they meant when asked.
What I meant . . .
If a student looked up “impact” in the dictionary and saw that an acceptable usage is “effect” their teachers should not “impact” them up side the head merely for “effect.”
The unintended double comment has been deleted. Yup, dictionaries can lead the unenlightened astray, and that’s one of the reasons that I give the quiz at the start of the semester–to show what I expect. Then I spend the remainder of the time teaching the same material again and again, since many of my students fail to take it seriously.
Did I mention that it’s the end of the semester? I’m crankier than usual right now.
You wear your crankiness so well . . . for our amusement and benefit.
I learned about this when I was an editorial intern at a magazine only 3 years ago. I never learned about it in any of my English classes. Now that I edit press releases for a living I can’t help noticing every time impact is used incorrectly – and it’s used incorrectly a lot! I always leave it as is because I don’t want the writer to get mad at the change. I think its meaning has officially shifted because so few people know its proper meaning.