I’ll second the call to ban this word (out of context)!
If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?
What word would it be? I can think of many, but in the last few years the word that annoys me most is ‘impact’. Everything ‘impacts’. In most cases, the word used should be affect, but because the person saying whatever it is they’re saying (this is usually the news) they use impact for everything.
Impact, in meaning, is about ‘force’, not how someone or something is affected.
The floods – how many people were ‘impacted’? No. How many people were affected? Which means, how many people did this have an effect on, or make a difference to? Nothing to do with force.
So, rant over. Next week, I’ll go back to doing a short story. Promise.
Cage Dunn - Fibber, Fabricator, Teller-of-Tall-Tales 
A lot of people get affect and effect confused, so maybe that’s why they use impact, which is sounds “corporate.”
Another word of that type, that drives me crazy, is “leverage.” In most cases it can be replaced with “use.”
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Not that I’m a great grammar person, but I do understand that synonyms do not always mean the same as the word the synonym search is done for (how’s that for round-a-bout meaning?).
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One of the features of the English language!
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Impacted is for molars, impact for meteorites! Bless you. I’m not crazy – they are.
My second ban would be ‘invite’ – for which we have the perfectly good (and better) ‘invitation.’
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Likely. Whatever happened to ‘it is likely’?
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It’s likely someone replaced it with an acronym.
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Having some knowledge of the language development area, I have to bite back my tendency to be critical of developing word use, but I’m only human and experience many aggravations and cause these for others, at times too, I’m sure. One of my pet hates is the overuse of utilise and utilisation (with the z for our US friends). The word ‘use’ says it all but doesn’t sound fancy enough maybe? And then, there is ’empathetic’ – isn’t ’empathic’ sufficient and it’s the ‘pathetic’ that jumps out at me. I’d better ‘Say No More’ ….
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‘Learnings’. I know new words are made up all the time, but this particular one makes me want to scream because it is so awful…and unnecessary. 😦
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I don’t think I’ve heard that one – or I’ve ignored it.
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I suspect you’ve ignored it because I’ve heard so many people on TV use it, even those who really should know better. Horrible word. 😦
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