‘This legislation will impact the market.’ ‘Your donation will impact the lives of young women in developing countries.’ ‘It’s a strategy that will impact your bottom line.’ ‘Our product is impacting every sector.’ ‘Using ‘impact’ as a verb will impact the effectiveness of your copy. And my sanity.’
For the love of Samuel L. Jackson, stop it!
Just because ‘impact’ has become a commonly used verb, doesn’t mean you have to use it EVERY SINGLE TIME you need to indicate that one thing has had an effect on another thing.
‘Impact’ is like ‘nice’. In fact, it’s worse. It’s bland. It’s beige. It tells you next to nothing. And it’s now so ubiquitous, it’s lost all… impact (if it ever had any).
Thanks a bunch, America.
A quick check of my 25-year-old Oxford English Dictionary (that’s right, a book, with pages and everything) tells me ‘impact’ is a noun and, yes, a verb. But the verb is flagged as American usage.
I haven’t investigated why the Yanks decided it would be a good idea to replace the plethora of rich, emotive, informative verbs that indicate an effect with the catch-all ‘impact’, but I’ve got a fair idea where it came from.
Testosterone-filled boardrooms. Inane PowerPoint presentations. Guys in suits who think saying ‘impact’ will help them make an impact.
Try a thesaurus.
I’m no Stephen Fry. I don’t have an especially impressive vocabulary. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t use ‘impact’ as a verb at all. But how about mixing it up every now and then? It’ll make your message more memorable and your story more compelling.
‘This legislation will invigorate the market.’
‘Your donation will transform the lives of young women in developing countries.’
‘It’s a strategy that will bolster your bottom line.’
‘Our product is supercharging every sector.’
‘Using ‘impact’ as a verb will diminish the effectiveness of your copy. And my sanity.’
Now, don’t get me started on ‘impactful’.
Like passive-aggressive blog posts? Keep an eye on our copywriting blog and our Copyranter series. Or, if you’d like some help finding better words than ‘impact’, contact our copywriters.
#copywriting #copyranter #tryathesaurus