[thelist] OT (verbage)

[Garvan Walshe]

Scott Johnson writes:
> >The problem with the verb "to impact" is not its status as a word, 
> >but rather that it conveys very little information: "The new 
> >competitor's business model impacted our bottom line." Impacted how? 
> >The word, suffering from tremendous blandness, enjoys no true 
> >association in anyone's linguistic model. It would be more precise to 

The verb "to impact"  is just a bout permissible when you're talking about
asteroids crashing into planets but even then it's an illiterate neologism
crafted  by people who believe in using the most complicated and latinate
words when at all possible in the mistaken belief that it makes them more
credible.  If there isn't a latinate word to use, they invent one. They
especially like taking nouns and making them verbs: suddenly in on stroke
of the pen they have created an entire new area to be acted upon.If
they're management consultants, they can even charge you for it.
Unfortunately, an entire profession has a strong financial incentive to
create new words like impact [verb], repurposing [still, thankfully only a
gerund], and worst of all leveraging.



-- 
Garvan Walshe

"When in doubt, blame the consultant"
	-- anonymous
	
Email: <garvan at acm.org>