'Speaking Politics' word of the week: impactful
鈥泪尘辫补肠迟蹿耻濒鈥�:聽A vague yet important-sounding way of saying 鈥渉aving a big effect鈥� that is finding a home in politics after becoming a corporate buzzword.
鈥淚mpactful鈥� is generating something of a, well, impactful response. Writing on the Donald W. Reynolds Center for National Business Journalism鈥檚 website this month, Debbi G. McCullough 聽the adjective as 鈥渁nnoying.鈥� In a Foreign Policy blog post headlined 鈥淪entences That Drive Us Nuts,鈥� national-security reporter Tom Ricks 聽from Duke University political scientist Peter Feaver about a 鈥済rand strategy鈥� that is 鈥渁gile, adaptive, and impactful.鈥�
It also has sparked a 聽on the question-and-answer website Quora about whether it should be considered a word at all. The original poster called it 鈥渁 mangled stepchild of the word 鈥榠mpact.鈥� 鈥欌��
At least some of this is a reaction to the word鈥檚 increasingly common political use. National Review this month 聽Mark Holden, general counsel of Koch Industries and chairman of Freedom Partners, as saying the billionaire Koch brothers鈥� GOP political activity has slowed because 2016 has not offered 鈥渢he same opportunities for us to be impactful in a principled way at the federal level鈥� as in the past.
Meanwhile, Stephanie Hannon, a former Google executive who is now a top digital strategist for Hillary Clinton, Politico that her campaign had many tech ideas that it would be unveiling. 鈥淪ome of the best stuff, the most impactful stuff, we just won鈥檛 talk about until November,鈥� she said.
And after Clinton won last month鈥檚 Pennsylvania Democratic primary, the vice president of the University of Pennsylvania鈥檚 Penn for Hillary, Robert Klein, 聽with rival Bernie Sanders: 鈥淗e has waged a very impactful campaign, and he鈥檚 reached a lot of people and created a lot of energy.鈥�
Congressional use of 鈥渋mpactful鈥� 聽in recent years, according to the Sunlight Foundation鈥檚 invaluable CongressWords.org website tracking word preferences in House and Senate floor debates. 聽
It鈥檚 popular among both Democrats and Republicans. The most frequent user? Arizona鈥檚 John McCain (R), the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman and unsuccessful 2008 GOP presidential nominee. Senator McCain has employed it to 聽others 鈥� 鈥淵ou have sometimes been a lonely voice, but you have always been an impactful voice,鈥� he said at a March hearing 鈥� as well as to 聽his political insights: 鈥淏eing a loser, I鈥檓 not sure what I have to say would be very impactful.鈥�
Like it or not, 鈥渋mpactful鈥� is here to stay, the website Grammarist . It noted one common complaint is that it鈥檚 substituted for 鈥減owerful鈥� and 鈥渋nfluential,鈥� but added: 鈥淲hile this might be true in some cases, the fact that聽颈尘辫补肠迟蹿耻濒听has become so entrenched in the language suggests that many people don鈥檛 find it to be an exact synonym of those words and that it has shades of meaning all its own.鈥�
聽Chuck McCutcheon writes his 鈥淪peaking Politics鈥櫬燽log exclusively for Politics Voices.
Interested in decoding what candidates are saying? Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark鈥檚 latest book, 鈥淒oubletalk: The Language, Code, and Jargon of a Presidential Election,鈥� is
