Today’s new word--impacted

“The Internet has impacted news and journalism more than almost any other category of information.” Library of Congress Preservation Newsletter, Oct. 2009

Not a new word--just grates on my ear/eye when I hear it/see it, and I always wonder if it’s correct. Not trusting the Library of Congress to be jargon free, I looked it up at Daily Writing Tips.

Using the word “impact” as a verb meaning to strike forcefully against something was first heard in 1916, according to Daily Writing Tips. And verbs have participles, thus the above sentence with “has impacted.”

Before that (and still in use) “impact” meant pack in or up, to press together--like an impacted tooth or impacted bowel. Impact as a noun was noted almost 200 years ago in 1817, “the effect of coming into contact with a thing or a person” or collision, forcible contact. And nouns become verbs all the time. Like Google and google. Or mother and mother. House and house. Impact is a word the EPA loves to use.

And the writer of that tip doesn’t like it either, but didn't say it was incorrect--just disconcerting.

Learning new words was one of my unmet New Year’s Resolutions for 2009. When I go back and reread them, I see I didn’t learn them, just wrote about them.