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

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: May 12, 2021, 02:59 UTC
Message-ID: <609b44a559ade_678ff2088@natae.notmuch>
In-Reply-To: <20210511104326.GJ12700@kitsune.suse.cz>

Michal Suchánek wrote:

> Also there is no single authority on the English language. The language
> is spoken in multiple distinct countries, and even within one country
> there is some variation. It also evolves over time.

And this is precisely the reason why you target the least common denominator.

Do you have **any** instance in which the sentence with "affect" reads worse than with "impact"?

> Since you can look up the meaning of the word in a general purpose
> dictionary it should be an acceptable use even if it's less commonly
> used in some other English-speaking parts of the world.

If you are writing classic prose, and most of your audience needs to use the dictionary to understand what you meant, you have failed.

Show 10 quoted lines

> > > If you do wholesale word replacement in the project for no good reason
> > > it only makes working with the project history harder.
> > 
> > I'm not sure I understand the sentiment here. As in, the Git history
> > will be polluted? Because the "git blame" command will only show
> > changes for the lines where I changed the single words.
> 
> Yes, it will be polluted. And since we have an opinion of another native
> English speaker that the use of 'impact' as synonym for affect/effect is
> fine this is clearly a matter of opinion.

It's not just native English speakers that read the English documentation.

Show 5 quoted lines

> This topic somewhat interests me so I was continuing this discussion
> in the hope that you either provide a specific very confusing use of the
> word impact in the documentation that triggered creating this patch or
> some solid evidence that the general use of word 'impact' as synonym for
> affect/effect is in some way problematic but niether happened.

This is not how improvements work.

We have two options: $a, and $b. You argue that $a doesn't really provide any advantages over $b (although it has been clearly demonstrated that it does). But you are not providing any advantage of $b over $a either.

Let's turn the tables around; do **you** have any evidence that "impact" is superior to "affect" in **any** instance?

-- 
Felipe Contreras