definitions – Roger Floyd's Website

Challenged

A few weeks ago I was standing in line at a local restaurant, and in front of me were several women from a home for the mentally ill. I presume they’ve been mentally ill all their life and are so impaired that they cannot live independently and need constant attention. It appeared that a couple of workers from the…

Affect vs. Impact

Recently, over I-don’t-know-how-many-years, maybe ten, the word “impact” has become a verb. It’s now commonplace to hear how something “impacted” something else. We even hear it used on the usually staid evening news. We hear how a hurricane “impacted” a state or town. We hear how new federal regulations will “impact” our daily lives. The use of…

Obsolete, Part 2

Two years ago (see my post of 9/14/2014, “Obsolete”) I posted about words that are going out of style. Words such as “actress” and “comedienne” are disappearing because of the tendency to use one word to refer to both male and female performers. A female playing a role in a film or on stage is an actor,…