Re: [PATCH] doc: replace jargon word "impact" with "effect"/"affect"

["Michal Suchánek" <msuchanek@suse.de>]

On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 06:49:58PM -0500, Varun Varada wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2021 at 04:48, Michal Suchánek <msuchanek@suse.de> wrote:
> > Yet Felipe insists that 'impact' is somehow generally bad word to use or
> > that it should be abolished solely because he finds it bad and nobody
> > objected to the alternative wording.
> >
> > Opinions on use of 'impact' differ both among the participants of this
> > discussion and authorities like authors well-known dictionaries.
> >
> > It looks like this is generally matter of stylistic preferences and
> > opinions. That is even if there is some slight stylistic preference for
> > not using the word 'impact' it is very hard to prove such and then it is
> > very hard to request change based only on writing style preferences.
> 
> The argument is not that it is generally a bad word to use, but that
> it is generally bad to use words when they don't mean what one thinks
> they mean, especially when all evidence says otherwise.

Not all evidence. There are people who think the use is fine.

> 
> All major dictionaries define "impact" as "a strong effect" or "to
> affect strongly". This is not style, but semantics. In the same way

Not all dictionaries, actually. And when there is no meaningful
difference between "strong efffect" and "effect" using word that means
one or the other is just style.`

> that "per se" being used to mean "necessarily" is not a style issue,
> using "impact" to mean "an effect" or "to affect" is not a style
> issue.
> 
> As has been stated already, the clear and substantial argument for
> this change is that it reduces the confusion that arises from
> improperly using the word "impact" in the instances without any loss

There is no final authority on 'correct' word use in English.
Authorities and readers disagree. In some cases local language variation
disagrees so completely that no use is correct everywhere - eg. color vs
colour.

We should learn to work together with people that use different
variant of the language rather than insist that the variant that I or my
teacher uses is the only correct one and everyone else should use it.

Thanks

Michal