Just because it is in the Dictionary doesn't Make it Right

It is sooooo juicy when one is right, I mean, as right as one can be about something fluid and ever-changing like language...

http://www.bartleby.com/61/25/I0052500.html

Make sure you read their "usage note" for "impact"--finally, someone says it. In case the link lets you down, here is the blurb:

"The use of impact as a verb meaning “to have an effect” often has a big impact on readers. Eighty-four percent of the Usage Panel disapproves of the construction to impact on, as in the phrase social pathologies, common to the inner city, that impact heavily on such a community; fully 95 percent disapproves of the use of impact as a transitive verb in the sentence Companies have used disposable techniques that have a potential for impacting our health. •It is unclear why this usage provokes such a strong response, but it cannot be because of novelty. Impact has been used as a verb since 1601, when it meant “to fix or pack in,” and its modern, figurative use dates from 1935. It may be that its frequent appearance in the jargon-riddled remarks of politicians, military officials, and financial analysts continues to make people suspicious. Nevertheless, the verbal use of impact has become so common in the working language of corporations and institutions that many speakers have begun to regard it as standard. It seems likely, then, that the verb will eventually become as unobjectionable as contact is now, since it will no longer betray any particular pretentiousness on the part of those who use it. See Usage Note at contact [this is awesome, read this one too: http://www.bartleby.com/61/49/C0594900.html]."


The OED, while it tracks the evils committed by idiots (many of course in "social-science") that made this word what it is today, does not chide the morons the way they should. Interesting.

From the OED On-Line:
3. intr. a. To come forcibly into contact with a (larger) body or surface. Const. various preps.

1916 [see IMPACTING ppl. a. below]. 1929 ‘SEAMARK’ Down River vi. 172 Something impacted with a soft thud against Lingard's temple. 1945 Jrnl. Sci. Instrum. XXII. 191 A jet of air issuing from a slot and impacting on a plane surface. 1962 F. I. ORDWAY et al. Basic Astronautics v. 201 The Soviet Lunnaya Raketa was launched early in the afternoon of September 12, 1959 and impacted onto the Moon's surface just after midnight on September 14, Moscow time.

b. fig. To have a (pronounced) effect on.

1935 W. G. HARDY Father Abraham 370 For there was about them an air of eagerness and of shuddering expectation which impacted on his consciousness and fascinated even while it repelled him. 1956 Oxf. Mag. 8 Nov. 81/1 The Magazine.. is not the place for consideration of national and international events except in so far as they impact on Oxford.

4. trans. To cause to impinge or impact on, against, etc.

1945 Jrnl. Sci. Instrum. XXII. 187 Experimental results for the efficiency of jets in impacting particles are correlated. 1964 K. STEWART in White & Smith High-Efficiency Air Filtration ii. 57 All impactors make use of the inertia effect which particles exhibit when the gas stream in which they are suspended is constrained to turn abruptly. The particle under suitable conditions cannot follow the stream lines and is impacted against a collecting plate. 1972 J. O. LEDBETTER Air Pollution A. v. 187 An aerosol moving toward an obstacle may impact particles on the obstacle.

Hence impacting ppl. a., impinging, colliding.

1916 ‘BOYD CABLE’ Action Front 95 No ping and smack of impacting lead hailed about them. 1961 Sci. Amer. Nov. 58/2 The impacting bodies may have been asteroids or comets. 1972 Daily Tel. 17 Apr. 6/8 These particles..cannot be measured or analysed from the Earth's surface. On the Moon, however, the impacting particles leave trails in the detector. 1973 Nature 13 July 68/2 Craters of the size of St Magnus Bay and The Firth would be formed by impacting meteorites of masses about 1 million tons.

Stay tuned for a list of other calamities of language! Next time: "incentivize!"