I was just going to let it go. I mean, sometimes, most times, it's just easier to step over the turd in the sidewalk. You don't ever want to try and kick it to the curb, and god forbid you should get out a plastic bag and pick up someone else's dogshit.
But I just couldn't, not this time. There in bold text on the Open Salon cover, highlighted as a sponsored call from an organization called Strong American Schools was the headline, "What can parents do to impact change in improving our schools?" And I thought to myself, "things are bad."
A quick check of the responses to this sponsored call reveals a number of thoughtful, well-written suggestions indicating people in the OS universe are concerned about education and have solid, common sense and even innovative ideas for helping children get the most out of the advantages of a good education. I was not surprised to see that.
And maybe I'll be shouted down, booed and hissed, reviled as a pedant, shunned as a nit-picker. But that question is wrong on so many levels I simply cannot excuse the fact that its meaning is transparent and easily understood without failing to point out that any English teacher I had past the 5th grade would have been all over it with a red pencil like a bad rash.
It turns out I am aligned with 84% of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Book of English Usage who cringe at the use of "impact" as a verb. I'm sure it has to do with the fact that, as the citation notes, "the use of impact as a verb has become so common in corporations and institutions that younger speakers have begun to regard it as standard."
How can we "impact change" - the phrase reeks of the very corporatism and institutionalism that I believe lies at the root of every social, economic and environmental challenge facing the human race today.
If we wish to improve our schools we should teach our children, first and foremost, how to see and think and speak clearly about things. We should teach them how to ask the right questions and to ask them plainly and simply and clearly.
In the present example, why not ask, "What can parents do to improve our schools?"
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lorianne
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If we must accept impact's usage as a verb, may we not still quibble with the compound phrase "impact change"? Would not "effect change" be a more proper and felicitous expression?
Rage against the dying of the light, I say!
It is not just the verbification of nouns--a heinous crime to be sure--but the adoption of the corporate manner of speaking that we need to resist. Hence, "impact change" rather than only "change." Because by adding the two words together, one can sound more high falutin than one sounds using only the single (sufficient!) word.
I briefly taught sociology at a college in New York State. Some of the written assignments turned in were marvelous examples of attempted obfuscation through excessive wordiness. They were simpler versions of graduate school lit crit papers, the post-modernism that allowed Sokal to play his famous hoax. (Worth looking up if you are not familiar with it.) These students had learned the rhythm of academic language, and had amassed a collection of polysyllabic, lesser-used words. They created sentences that had the proper form but were wholly devoid of meaning. The nouns were where nouns should be, the adverbs modified verbs (even if those verbs were formerly known as "nouns"), but if you tried to extract meaning from their writing, you were doomed to failure, for no meaning was there to be found.
Using language in this manner always seems to me to have the intention of intimidating people who might question your assertions if you stated them clearly. In so doing, they would presumably discover they you had no idea what you were talking about. Or you had merely a simple kernel of an idea that you could not or would not take the time and effort to flesh out.
Sorry to post a comment as long as your post, Comrade Lonnie, but you have hit a nerve. To the barricades, I say!
Worse yet are the abysmal grammatical and spelling errors in letters, assignments, and other paperwork and correspondence received almost daily from my children's school. It's difficult to respect the teachers and administrators when they haven't picked up a copy of Strunk & White in years, if ever.
And Farmer's reference to Strunk & White is very timely, there is a bit of a brouhaha over it that I will now have to blog about. I'm off!
And I can't wait to see what's up with Strunk & White. Hurry up and write, Biblios.
Funny aside about S&W. I heard something on NPR, I think, about some literary/grammar fellow who have an interview on the radio. After they had calls and emails from all sorts of people who were shocked and puzzled as to why he had answered one of the questions with "I'm a drunken white guy..."
I have often considered writing a whole book in the written phonetic vernacular of my region.
They sent linguists here to record the downeasters because nobody could understand the older ones and the inbred language was disappearing as the new generation got mainstreamed.
There is a book about it called "Hoi Toide on the Oiter Banks"
They say things like "I was to the grocery but I had to get my boat out of the water pre the stprm."
I had no idea what half of them were saying the first ten years I lived here. I understand them now. It is frightening.
here it is
Leigh Bailey, it is so nice to be a hero to someone besides my son; the pressure was starting to get to me. Thanks, my new friend.
And I think you need to write a post dedicated to the southern idiosyncrasy "fixing to" or as it is heard in Memphis, "fittina".
"impact change in improving"
What does that MEAN? Notice how each misuse causes another, so that there is a veritable cascade of nonsense. Why does change have to be impacted? Isn't change by definition an impact? Andy why "in improving"?
I keep staring at it, and it doesn't get any clearer.
Biblio - McCain IS a brand. So is Republicanism. They replaced values with advertising and truth with hype. The marketing-ese is accurate terminology.
My favorite corporate speak of the election: When Palin said that McCain is a maverick who builds consensus.
Thanks for being watchful.
Here in Jacksonville, Florida, we get the school district newsletter bundled with ads for water softeners and tutoring corporations. Something is *decidedly* broken.
This year, my son's teacher told us "not to worry" about spelling as it relates to our child's writing. "It is better to use an incorrectly spelled word than not use it at all."
How about the kid getting off their butt and using a f'ing dictionary?
Don't get me started on "integrated math" which invites my son to "explore numbers rather than deal in concrete substantive paradigms."
You'll have to excuse me, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Scruffus, kids DO learn grammar without being taught. Read just about anything by Steven Pinker or David Crystal to see how. They do need to be taught to spell and do math and use dictionaries and reference books, however.
If you're seeking to make your own "interpretation" of a standard, be it rock or pop or jazz or classical, it always helps to learn to play a composition the "right" way before you start breaking the rules.
Same with spelling and the over reliance on spell check.
Even if we accept "impact" as a verb, surely its meaning, "to have an effect," does not work with "change"! We need change to begin with before we can impact it!
And I don't even know where to go with the "improving" part.
Thanks, Lonnie.