The Fed may "impact" you, don't turn your back!

Here we go again with the word "impact." From a recent headline on a financial web site called "Seeking Alpha":

"How the Fed's Decision Impacts You"

This time, Ben Bernancke and the Fed might impact you. Oh nooo... Once more, "impact" used as a verb means: press against, collide, crash, affect strongly, influence (advised to use with an adjective); pack in, squeeze in.

The Fed will press against us, or worse, squeeze itself in! Into what? Into our very selves?! Of course not, but because the word was used literally, we might be wary of turning our backs on the Fed and its chief operator Mr. Bernancke.

The headline could have read: "The Fed might make an adverse impact on you." This way, you use "impact" as a noun which means "influence," together with a qualifying adjective which clarifies the point.

Otherwise, if the Fed and Chairman Bernancke impact you, they collide with you just as two NFL football bodies collide with each other, or just as celestial bodies make terrible collisions out there in the enormity* of cold, dark space.

*See Dr. Seth Shostak's comment 7/29/08.

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Admiral Michael Mullen Makes an "Impact"

Uh oh. Here we go again. Admiral Mullen, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, and an alumnus of this writer's high school, spoke the following to the to members of the foreign press at the Foreign Press Center in Washington, D.C., responding to questions concerning creating stability in Iraq.

"Clearly, the ability (of the United States and others) to impact Iraq's economy...(would be helpful)."

If we allow that Admiral Mullen intended the figurative use of impact: "to influence Iraq's economy in some positive way," he would be speaking, well, figuratively. We should assume literal intentions when discussing such grave subjects as the situation in Iraq. Thus, if he is speaking literally, he would convey that we are literally trying to "pack something (good will? money?) into Iraq. This might make for visual drama of some sort but would certainly be ineffective, even silly.

Otherwise, Mullen used "impact" properly as a noun in a subsequent sentence:

“One of the unexpected outcomes that's had a big impact on security has been this group of some 70,000 concerned local citizens, who have taken back … their towns and their villages and their areas...”

Let us all hope that whatever ingenuous help Iraq receives, it will prove to have an impact.

"Impact" used as a verb means: to physically press firmly on or into something, to pack in. Clearly, nothing physical pressed against the country of Iraq other than the bombs dropped in the beginning of the exercise. A figurative use of impact allows for the "influence of a person or thing upon another person or thing," in ways positive and negative, but the word is most often used as a noun usually in a phrase with either "make" or "have" as: Ending sectarian violence in Iraq will have an impact on creating peace and prosperity.


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Teeth May Become Impacted, But Judicial Sentences, Certainly Not

Celebrity legal reporter Harvey Levin made a big impact recently misusing the word "impact" when he commented on football star, dog abuser Michael Vick's guilty plea. He said to Larry King,

"If he (Vick) snitches it will impact his sentence." That is, by pleading guilty, Vick indicates he will cooperate with government prosecutors in a way that might lead to more convictions in the dog fighting/killing field.

What Mr. Levin meant to say was that Vick's snitching will likely, influence in a helpful way his ultimate prison sentence.

"Impact" used as a verb means: to physically press firmly on or into something, to pack in. Clearly, nothing will physically press against Vick's court decision. A figurative use of impact allows for the "influence of a person or thing upon another person or thing," in ways positive and negative, but the word is used as a noun usually in a phrase with either "make" or "have" as: Vick's snitching may have an impact upon his sentence.

If Levin made an impact upon the sensitive ears of some of us, the sound of the "collision" stemmed from a fatal error in usage.