Addicted to Impacts

Welcome back. I did not realize how much the word ''impact'' is overused in the media until Wilma Mathews mentioned the trend. I thank and credit her for suggesting I use it as a topic in an EWA. And here it is. I hope this issue of my newsletter impacts your word choices going forward.
Note: If you would like to consult past EWA issues, visit my blog on my LinkedIn profile.

As a hurricane approached the East Coast last fall, the American public got hit with a hurricane of a very different kind, as announcers and weather reporters overused the word ''impact'' in describing the storm's effects.

Using ''impact'' as a noun, there were the storm's economic impact, erosion impact and flood impact. Using the word as a verb, the storm impacted the coast as it came ashore; and was about to impact communications, roads, beaches, fresh water supplies, the electric grid and nearly every other resource. In addition, using the word as an adjective, the hurricane was ''impactful.'' That sounds pretty weak for a Force Three hurricane, don't you agree?

If you begin to listen for the word impact, you begin to hear it everywhere. It seems to spring out of nowhere like bunny rabbits at Eastertime.

Do these impacts sound familiar?
Economic impact
School-shooter impact
9/11 impact on our sense of safety
Foreign government debt-default impact
Impact of Middle Eastern tensions
Business hiring impact
Stock market and bond market impacts
NFL concussion-controversy impact
Unemployment or job-creation number impact
The impact of the jobless report
Earnings impact
The lingering impacts of the recession
The delegate-count impact
Mortgage foreclosure impact
Tornado impact
Global warming impact
Oil spill impacts
The impact of multiple deployments

Here's my thesis: This word is overused. Many synonyms for the word will do just as well, if not better, but the media has fallen into a rut. Overdependence on the word is not only journalistically lazy; it is non-descriptive. It vaguely refers to something without committing the speaker or writer to saying anything specific.

Here's my suspicion: Confusion over affect/effect usage is one cause for the popularity of impact. No one is ever confused over the use of the word impact.

Something about the word appeals to elite media types in the U.S. and on the B.B.C (at least the U.S. version of the B.B.C. I sometimes listen to). It sounds important; it carries a sense of gravitas. It is a noun that takes adjectives nicely and sounds quotable. It has what I call a ''meta-aura'' about it. It sounds intelligent and makes a reporter who uses it appear knowledgeable.

The primary use as a noun is to describe a collision, ''the moment of impact,'' for example. Other words that might work just as well: bang, blow, bounce, buffet, crash, crush, kick, knock, rock, shock, strike and stroke.

Today, as a noun, impact is used as a synonym for aftermath. Other words beside aftermath that could be used just as effectively: aftereffects, aftershocks, lingering effects, effects, long-range consequences, pay offs, results, and upshots.

As a verb, reporters could describe how one thing affects another, or how it crashes, jolts, kicks, strikes, smashes up, implode, or explodes something else, a myth, for example.

As I said at the top, I hope this EWA impacts your use of this word and causes a smashup in your word choice, which causes you to swear off use of this word for the foreseeable future, at least for the next five minutes.