I just learned that “impact” has only recently been used as a verb. The Dictionary program on my MacBook reports:
Impact has traditionally been only a noun. In recent years, however, it has undergone a semantic shift that has allowed it to act as a verb. Such use has become widespread (and also widely condemned by stylists)—e.g.: “The researchers concluded that this low level of intensity may have impacted [read affected ] the results.” ( Tampa Tribune; July 17, 1997.) This use of the word would be perfectly acceptable if impact were performing any function not as ably performed by affect or influence. If affect as a verb is not sufficiently straightforward in context, then the careful writer might use have an impact on, which, though longer, is probably better than the jarring impact of impacted. Reserve impact for noun uses and impacted for wisdom teeth.
Interestingly, impact as a verb might have arisen partly in response to widespread diffidence about the spelling of affect (often confused with effect). — BG
This makes a lot of sense (and I particularly like the theory about the origin of this usage)…but I am embarrassed to say that I only discovered this because I was about to use it as a verb! No more…no more.
