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

From: Felipe Contreras <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 May 2021 21:59:49 -0500

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.

> > > 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.

> 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