"Impact" as a verb

I never correct people's grammar in conversation and very rarely in something I've seen written. In fact, few grammatical mistakes get on my nerves.

But the use of "impact" as a verb, however acceptable it has become, really grates on me.

I'll put up with, "A meteor impacted Russia," though I would prefer something like "hit" or "struck" and "left an impact."

"The experience really impacted me," someone will say on TV.

I think they are simply avoiding having to choose between "affected" and "effected."

the use of "impact" as a verb, however acceptable it has become,

"Impact" has been a verb since at least 1601, according to my OED.

I am reminded of the dreaded phrase 'impacted wisdom tooth" which, if impact were not a verb effectively meaning "to push against", would be incomprehensible.

>2 lilithcat:,3
Historically it was only used for pressing or packing into something, though, as it continues to be in the medical/dental use.
The figurative sense and the quasi-technical use to mean "collided with" both seem to have arisen in the mid-20th century.

I share Barney's loathing of this particular usage, though I defer to Joan's citation from the OED. I will stand on the occasionally shaky ground of old(er) age and say that the controversial usage only came into prominence in the 1960s, with the various space programs. The technoids of that day never used an ordinary word if there was a chance in Hell to inflict something new and graceless upon us. -- Goddard

My American Heritage Dictionary 2nd edition makes some qualifictions from which I concluded the following:

1) As a noun, the term often refers to "impacted tooth."

1) "A meteor impacted the Earth" is grammatical because the verb refers to a collision.

2) "The experience impacted me" is ungrammtical. Experices don't collide with you. The experience influenced you or affected you.

Of course, what one wants to know is how the experience affected you.

An experience can certainly hit you like a sledgehammer...

I think the dictionary means literally collide, not figuratively.

I suspect the modern meaning went via "impact crater". The rock of such craters was known to have been deformed under enormous pressure (hence "impacted") long before the theory that they were caused by meteor strikes became commonly accepted. After that it wasn't a big step from meteors causing impact craters to meteors "impacting".

That's just a guess though.

>1 barney67:

Of all the usages which might grate on one's sensibilities, 'impact' as a verb seems to me to be among the least offensive, if, indeed, it qualifies at all. For me it implies a contact more dynamic than 'impress', and it has a metaphorical use that is valid in the same way as that verb.

I feel like my teeth are being impacted every time I hear the word 'impactful.'

In re #11. mac, there's an epidemic of it. What is to be done? If Sir William Schwenck Gilbert were alive...

With nominal forms like this it's usually safe to go back to the verb that produced the noun. So: "A meteor impinged Russia."

Am I wrong to dislike "grow' as the verb when talking about building a business, church, school, or group? Is that being used correctly, and I just don't like it because it's not what I'm used to?

>14 trishpaw:
Presumably you mean when it's used transitively, as in "We are looking for staff with a commitment to grow the business."?

It's not really standard English. For some reason, as Matt Groening spotted, English doesn't have a single transitive verb we can use for "to cause something to become bigger". In the 15th century you could say that David "grewe and amended" Jerusalem during his reign, but the OED tells us that that particular sense is obsolete. However, it's only really a tiny step from "to grow potatoes" or "to grow a beard", which are both perfectly legitimate.

So you're probably quite right to dislike it, but pedantic if you object to it :-)

#15 ...but pedantic if you object to it

Praise indeed!

11 -- Now you've got it. I've heard that one, too.

>15 thorold:

Thorold feels that

'English doesn't have a single transitive verb we can use for "to cause something to become bigger"'

I'm afraid the OED begs to differ, pace Mr Matt Groening, defining the word 'aggrandize' as follows:

'To make (something) larger or more intense; to enlarge, increase, magnify'

Other usages are of course allowed.

As Mr Groening might say: 'Doh!'.

18 > Ah, but one could quibble that "aggrandize" is applied to make something bigger in the sense of importance, not size.

"Click to aggrandize" sounds like I want it to be more influential, not physically larger.

>19 PhaedraB:

My reading of OED leaves me in no doubt which side of the quibble they'd favour.

However I agree that the most frequent uses these days relate to human activity. As, for example in 'self-aggrandizement'.

>18 CliffordDorset:,19,20
It occurs to me that "enlarge" is also a strong contender for falsifying my statement in 15. That tends to mean something like "increase the linear dimensions of something", so it's still a bit narrower than "grow". It is a bit better at replacing it than "aggrandize", but not quite a 100% fit.

- To grow the church = to get more members, money, community support, spiritual strength, ...
- To enlarge the church = to add a couple more bays to the nave
- To aggrandize the church = to make the tower twice as high and gild it

I was horrified when I first saw "embiggen" for enlarging a photo on flickr, but apparently it is an acceptable word. So far I have not seen "ensmallen".

>23 thorold:
If it were not for the redundant "em-" prefix, it would be a perfectly respectable (if somewhat archaic) dialect word.

Good grief, how could I have forgotten "enlarge"? I used to have a brain...

I regret to inform that 'embiggen' isn't recognised by the OED.

My impulse to look brought forth the verb in common parlance 'to big up', and although OED does include 'big up' it is for two uses as nouns, and one expression of acknowledgement.

In its current attempts to reflect trends, I expect the OED will eventually embrace 'big up' as a verb, but 'embiggen' is the sort of thing which reflects the more nerdish thoughts of web designers.

>25 CliffordDorset:
Clifford, try looking in your OED uner "b" for "biggen". You may get a surprise...

I don't suppose "embiggen" has yet got to the stage where anyone uses it without a conscious reference to The Simpsons, but it's the sort of coinage that might well take on an independent existence.

The first time I heard "impact" as a verb I was at university (1980's), where the word had become fashionable among social science professors. They used it when commenting on variables that effected other variables.

The use bothered me because "impact" implies a hard, smacking event. Variables lean on each other, perhaps, but impact? No. I still cringe when I hear it used improperly .

Augment is transitive.

grow vs. enlarge

To me, it's odd how their suitability when applied to intangibles varies with how they are used. But, generally, 'grow' seems to carry with it a connotation of raising something from its beginnings, as in 'grow the church'.

The following sound right to me, but don't seem to retain the same meaning when you switch 'grow' and 'enlarge':

grow the church
enlarge the scope
grow an idea
enlarge your expectations
etc.

For example, I may have grown the idea, but you came along and enlarged it (or 'enlarged on it'?).

However, 'expand' seems to fit the bill more often than not:

expand the church
expand the scope
expand an idea
expand your expectations

Is it just me, or does expand seem to allow for the original meaning to remain, but at the cost of introducing some ambiguity?

Os.

>29 Osbaldistone:
Yes, "expand" seems to be the best yet. Those connotations of cultivating and nurturing are evidently what the people who use "grow" in this way are trying to bring in. You miss those with "expand", but at least you free yourself from the geometric associations of "enlarge" and the qualitative associations of "augment".

>30 thorold:
I do not see how 'augment' has more 'qualitative associations' than any other offering -- fewer I think.

From today's National Weather Service:

"Heavy Rainfall Impacting the Southwest"

The UK forecasters keep referring to Apache rain.

Heavy!!

In the past few years the weather reports in Ireland have included "thunder snow" and "monster rain".

These terms were new to me.

There's one of the Bill Bryson books where he comments on hearing a BBC weather forecast when he first came to England ("...a cloudy day with the possibility of sunny intervals and showers") and reflects (a) how much less dramatic it seemed than what he was used to in America and (b) that it could quite accurately be applied to just about any day's weather in the South of England. My impression is that British forecasts have become a lot more dramatic lately - but I hadn't noticed the Apaches. Only in the Southwest, perhaps?

34 -- "thunder snow"

I've heard thunder in the winter, but this is the one I really like:

"monster rain."

With a little imagination, that could mean all kinds of neat things.

36

As it happens the terms were pretty accurate descriptions of the phenomena concerned. Thunder snow was used to describe heavy snow showers with thunder and lightning, not something we would be used to in Ireland.

Monster rain was used to describe ultra-heavy rainfall that caused flooding in a very short period. The heavy rain was much heavier than we would be used to here and it was so intense the run-off overwhelmed the drainage systems. Several rivers around Dublin, including the Liffey & the Dodder burst their banks. The youtube video below is an amalgamation of clips filmed by members of the public showing the aftermath of the "monster rain".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAozRKfTXjQ

A British friend of mine heard this from an American weatherman: "negative precipitation." And then whenever he thought I was using a syllable too many, he would trot it out.

When I was a kid in Kentucky, USA, I remember the weather forecast map often had this on it: "PCLDY and Warm". Now I hate pickles, so I wasn't much interested in pickledy and warm weather. : -)

Os.

39 > That kind of weather could certainly sour your outlook.

Headine from The Guardian:

"Top tips for creating an impactful brand experience"

I'm not even sure what a "brand experience" is, let alone an "impactful" one.

>41 barney67:
I'm not even sure what a "brand experience" is

Your time in the Old West was obviously wasted! :-)

#42 Ouch!

>42 thorold:
Now that might just be the only justified use of the phrase "impactful brand experience"!

Os.

>44 Osbaldistone:

Since the word 'brand' involves burning (cf the distillation process for brandy), perhaps the impact which you infer involves no mechanical impact at all. I imagine that the branding of cattle via burning of their hide was carried on into the more modern commercial world by the similar marking of wooden crates that contained goods. This would lead naturally to commercial 'branding'.

A 'brand experience' would originally have been limited to criminals in a way which gave them a permanent 'brand awareness'!

>45 CliffordDorset:
The OED seems to confirm that - the earliest citations for "brand" as trade-mark (starting 1728) all refer to marks on wood (lumber). The use of "brand" for the trade-marked goods rather than for the mark itself came in in the mid-19th-century.

Earlier figurative uses of "brand" generally seem to be along the "mark of infamy" line, i.e. more to do with the marking of criminals than of cattle.

#46 & #45
limited to criminals
along the "mark of infamy" line

...as per the "fleur-de-lis" branding in France. (M'Lady being a prime example.)

47 > A book reference! Yay!

>46 thorold:, 47
BTW - is there anyone here who can see the word "infamy" without thinking of Kenneth Williams?

I haven't thought of Kenneth Williams in years.

:-)

>50 pgmcc:
Now try not thinking of an elephant...

An elephant can have some impact if it lands on someone from a great height.

(Just trying to keep on-topic.)

I clicked on the link. The video didn't answer the question: who is Kenneth Williams?

Robert

who is Kenneth Williams?

Sorry, probably an unduly provincial British cultural reference. He was a famously camp radio comedian of the 50s and 60s who also acted in the "Carry on..." films, hence the toga.

Fantabulosa!

'Oooh! Matron!'

>54 thorold: No need to apologise. Williams is just one example of the essentially British way of dealing with the taboo of male homosexuality long before anyone thought of appropriating the word 'gay'. Other artists who would make Vladimir Putin's hair curl were Frankie Howerd and Charles Hawtrey. They managed to entertain people from within the closet in a way which endeared them even to little old ladies.

They had 'impact' without resorting to dropping elephants on the audience.

Not forgetting Danny La Rue and John Inman.

They too did not drop elephants on audiences.

I agree with the OP; "impact" as a verb is gratingly ugly.

Even worse...

"The software experts are architecting the new system."

Gaaaaah!

>11 macsbrains: Agreed. The word "impactful" should be illegal.

I like 'impactish.'

Robert

>61 Mr.Durick:
The OED doesn't record it (yet), but it does have impactly ("rare") from 1862. Seems to mean the same as "firmly".

I found these headlines at Forbes magazine.

• Bill and Melinda Gates Propose The Five Most Impactful Charities For Holiday Giving
• Are You an Impactful Leader?
• Decisions, Decisions: How to Make Them Better and More Impactful

Headlines, though, are usually allowed more latitude when it comes to grammar.

One could still wish the headline writer an impact to the head.

#65 - What should one use to make the impact?

#66 What should one use to make the impact?

Weighty words might fit the bill.

An impacter

Robert

I used to write headlines. I still don't like it. It impacts me negative-wise.

1> "The experience really impacted me," someone will say on TV.

I think they are simply avoiding having to choose between "affected" and "effected." They would undoubtedly choose 'effected'. Some uses of 'impact' niggle me, too.

Not only am I coming to this discussion late, I didn't even know this group existed! It is right up my alley.

Just briefly, I, too, dislike "impact" as a verb, and even more detest "impactful."

"Grow the business," etc., has irritated the hell out of me since I first heard it. Enhance, enlarge, improve are all perfectly good words.

Here's another: "incentivize." "Encourage" works just fine, no? Or is that just me?

On the other hand, I have been recently reading a collection of the plays of Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler. The collection is a Modern Library first edition, published in 1933. On the title page for each play is listed the translator for that play, except for the third play in the collection, for which we read, "Englished by Grace Isabel Colbron." Englished!

#71

That's archaic. I like it, I have several "English'd" editions of classics.

>71 rocketjk:
The OED cites the first use of "English" as a verb from 1450. Shakespeare and Milton both used it (for the latter I'd have thought "Latin" as a verb would be more obvious, but there you are...).

I think it was largely killed off in common use by its other meaning of giving spin to a ball (late 19th century).

#73> Thanks for that information. I guess "Englished" will be added to my rather long list of things that were done in 1450 that I disapprove of for current use and/or behavior, although it will fail to make the list of things that keep me up at night.

Cheers!

National Weather Service (web site) today:

"Winter storm impacting the eastern U.S. on Monday"

Re: To impact.

How would our sensitive souls handle an impacted wisdom tooth? With compacted wisdom?