| 词组 | impact |
| 释义 | impact This word comes in for adverse criticism both as a noun and as a verb in figurative use. The criticism is relatively recent, beginning evidently in the 1960s with Bernstein 1965, Fowler 1965, and Follett 1966. These three (and also Bremner 1980) are concerned with the noun; later writers take up the cudgels against the verb. The gist of most of the criticism is fairly well summed up in this portion of the discussion in Cook 1985: impact A word fit to describe the crash of a wrecker's ball against its target, impact has become a substitute for bearing, influence, significance, and effect. It's so overworked in officialese and journalese that the more appropriate terms are falling into disuse. Both Follett and Bernstein have harsh words for this "faddish" abasement of the noun. How much more horrified they might have been had they lived to see the current vogue of the verb impact in the sense of "to have an impact" or "to have an impact on" (Loose usage adversely impacts the language). Let us examine the noun use first. Cook's assertion that impact is so overworked that its synonyms are falling into disuse has no real basis; all of the listed synonyms continue to flourish. As to the overuse in officialese and journalese, we cannot be so positive. Impact may well be overworked in those areas, but as we shall see, it did not become established there first, nor is it limited to those areas. The historical background of the figurative use goes back to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817, according to evidence in the OED. But it gives few 19th-century quotations, which leads us to believe that the use did not really become common until the 20th century. In spite of the suggestion about official language and journalism, the bulk of our early evidence comes from sources that must be generally described as literary: • It seems to me that intensity is the only thing. A day's impact is better than a month of dead pull — Oliver Wendell Holmes d. 1935, letter, 4 Apr. 1909 • ... the various impacts of science upon thought — Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925 • ... expose the mind bare to the poem, and transcribe in all its haste and imperfection whatever may be the result of the impact —Virginia Woolf, The Second Common Reader, 1932 • ... the impact of industrialism on a country only beginning to create an art and literature —Granville Hicks, The Great Tradition, 1933 • ... one feels as one reads the sheer impact of immediate experience —John Livingston Lowes, Essays in Appreciation, 1936 • The first impact of this policy on Octavius's mind — John Buchan, Augustus, 1937 • Events are sensational in the degree in which they make a strong impact in isolation —John Dewey, Freedom and Culture, 1939 • Everything which happened to me to-day was curiously without impact —Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories, 1946 • Here is the impact of the South on the sun-starved North —Eudora Welty, Saturday Rev., 23 Sept. 1950 • But in the immediate impact of this scene we are unconscious of the medium of its expression —T. S. Eliot, Atlantic, February 1951 By the early 1950s, the figurative sense seems to have become immensely popular—at least we have abundant evidence of its use. It was probably the spread of the sense to the nonliterary material read by usage commentators that led to the initial adverse criticism. The earliest negative comment in our files is from an issue of Saturday Review in late 1944. The writer, whose name we failed to record, objected to the term in a sociological book. Copperud 1970, 1980 notes that dictionaries all consider the figurative use of the noun standard; from the sample of relatively early use given above, you can see why they do. The use was established as standard nearly a half century before Bremner discovered it to be faddish. With the verb we have a somewhat more complicated situation. Not only is the figurative extension of the verb much more recent (the OED Supplement's earliest citation is from 1935) but so is the adverse criticism (apparently the earliest is that of the Heritage usage panel in 1982). But since part of the criticism seems to be based on the erroneous notion that the verb is derived from the noun by functional shift, we must first pursue a little etymology. Here are a few noun-used-as-verb comments: • Americans also use... nouns as verbs (e.g., 'impact,' 'vacation') —Andrew Knight, N.Y. Times, 7 May 1978 • ... "caveat" and "impact" became verbs [in the speech of Secretary of State Alexander Haig] — James H. Boren, Washington Post Mag., 23 Jan. 1983 • It may be that my children will use gift and impact as verbs without the slightest compunction —Geoffrey Nunberg, Atlantic, December 1983 • "... impact as a verb." The former noun has been used so often in its verb form in bored rooms that impact on has lost its punch —Safire 1986 But impact was a verb in English before it was a noun; it is first attested in 1601 and was brought in straight from the past participle of the Latin verb that also gave us impinge. The relatively recent figurative uses of the verb are parallel to, though no doubt influenced by, the figurative sense of the noun; this is not a case of a verb derived from an earlier noun. Our earliest evidence for figurative use of the verb is, like the figurative use of the noun, primarily literary: • The world did not impact upon me until I got to the Post Office and picked up my mail —Christopher Morley, The Man Who Made Friends with Himself, 1949 • ... the images impacting the human retina — Thomas Hart Benton, University of Kansas City Rev., Autumn 1950 • How will total war impact on such a poet? —Times Literary Supp., 4 May 1951 • It hardly impacted even on the guests' subconscious —Enid Bagnold, Atlantic, October 1952 The verb, however, did not establish itself as steadily and rapidly as the noun did. Instead we find only a trickle of use in the 1950s and 1960s; not until about 1970 is there a noticeable increase in use, and even through the 1970s the increase is modest. The biggest jump in use in our files occurs around 1980, and it is this advance that attracted the criticism to be found in Heritage 1982, Harper 1985, Kilpatrick 1984, and Cook 1985. There is now a difference in where the word is found, too. The newer citations come from quotations from politicians, from business and financial sources, and from other reportage. Some examples: • Requirements of the war have impacted very heavily on the services' pilot inventory —Senator John Stennis, quoted by Bergen Evans in Famous Writers Mag., Spring 1968 • More governmentese—Environmental Protection Administrator Ruckelshaus talks of ways to "advantageously impact" the auto pollution problem — Wall Street Jour., 2 Mar. 1973 • ... a variety of efforts to impact energy —Senator Edward M. Kennedy, quoted in N.Y. Times Mag., 24 June 1979 • Imports of stainless steel products continued to impact the Division's profits during 1970 —Annual Report, Armco Steel Corp., 1970 • This need to hold stock for 12 months will impact mutual funds —Robert Lenzer, Barron's, 20 Dec. 1976 • ... lets us spend more on R&D without impacting the bottom line —Jessie I. Aweida, quoted in Business Week, 26 Jan. 1981 • ... says he's not worried about IBM impacting Apple sales in the West —Financial Post (Toronto), 23 Jan. 1982 • ... has grown considerably since transplanted here in 1972, impacting the city with full brontosaurian force a year later, when 54 concerts were stuffed into ten days —Gary Giddins, New York, 30 June 1975 • ... these differences impact on and often adversely affect the communications process —Geneva Smith-erman, English Jour., February 1976 • The production and use of energy stands out by far as the single most critical item impacting on the environment —Leon Lindsay, Christian Science Monitor, 30 Jan. 1980 • ... attributes much of that problem to inflation as it impacts upon the tax system —Soma Golden, N. Y. Times Mag., 23 Mar. 1980 • ... more Americans are traveling to the United Kingdom, which may impact art and antiques sales there —Antique Monthly, October 1981 • At the technology session that impacted on the development of electronic publishing —Publishers Weekly, 1 Jan. 1982 • No one knows how the proposed changes will impact Europe's air —Civil Engineering, August 1982 • ... said the proposal ... could impact all women seeking abortions —Denver Post, 5 Sept. 1984 • ... two issues which at first blush may seem non-educational in nature, but which in reality impact heavily on the choices which Smith students make —Barbara B. Reinhold, Smith Alumnae Quarterly, Winter 1984 The variety of sources quoted here (and we have even more in our files) suggests that the figurative senses of the verb impact are standard and reasonably well established. The financial uses tend to occur in surroundings that include more jargon than do the rest, and we have a couple of citations that show the verb in the context of military jargon. Many of our citations are of quoted speech. Curiously, this verb is no longer prominent in the literary sources from which it sprang; it seems not to have established its use in literary writing, as the noun did. We find no difference in degree of formality or typical context between transitive and intransitive uses. You need not use this verb if you find it unappealing; a periphrastic substitute (often including the noun) will suggest itself for nearly any context in which the verb might be used, and sometimes another verb such as affect, influence, impinge, or hit may serve. But it is too late now for complaint to prevent the establishment of this use. |
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