Date:    Fri, 10 Apr 1998 09:38:18 -0400
<br>From:    Gregory {Greg} Downing <downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IS2.NYU.EDU>
<br>Subject: Impactful
<br>
<br>Before I throw away this week's TV Guide, I wanted to note a word on p. 35.
<br>In a discussion of Agnes Nixon, the famous soap-opera scriptwriter, Susan
<br>Lucci the famous soap-opera actress is quoted as saying: "Agnes was
<br>dramatizing socially impactful stories before anyone else had the coureage
<br>or imagination to do it." I checked several recent dictionaries and a couple
<br>of recent books on neologisms I happened to have around, and I didn't see
<br>"impactful." I know that *I* haven't seen it before; I'd have remembered it....
<br>
<br>I imagine "impactful" grows naturally out of the ongoing tendency to expand
<br>the conveniently intense but vague word "impact," first from a noun to a
<br>verb, and then to an adjective. But is this a hapax/nonce-word, or do others
<br>out there have citations for it, or recollections of having heard it? (And
<br>could "impactfully" and "unimpactful" be far behind?)
<br>
<br>(See, I'm still thinking about the boundaries between nonce-usage,
<br>neologism, empirically attested but stigmatized usage, and performance
<br>error....)
<br>
<br>Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu
<br>