Recently at a newspaper close to my heart, a perfectly good sentence about something's impact on something else was changed by an editor who apparently interprets the maxim "Impact is not a verb" to mean "Impact is not a word." Worse yet, this editor changed the noun not to effect, but to affect. Moral: Master the basics before attempting to cultivate pet peeves.
Friday, August 03, 2001
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Impact, as in effect, may be the third definition in the dictionary, but I see or hear it far too often in written, quoted or spoken comments. I think writers should find better words to communicate, and I still subscribe to the definition of impact as a violent, physical collision.
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