Impact-free

Please, people, please. Can we agree, now and forever, never to use the word "impact" as a verb? (E.g., "our new Northeast strategy really impacted our bottom line.") It is a sure sign of an anemic and uncreative mind and a penchant for doing evil things, like clubbing baby seals or appreciating the Isley Brothers' single "Busted" without irony. It sounds like corporate-speak. The only time it is okay to use "impact" as a verb is when discussing bowel dysfunction, as in, "I ate a pound of government-issued cheese, which impacted my shit into a petrified divot that refuses to pass through the gate." This summons images of the fecal finger of fate and Dirty Sanchezes, neither of which ought to be associated with your corporation. So please, be careful: when you use "impact" improperly, you are really saying that your new Northeast strategy caused a mountain of rigid shit to be piled against your bottom line. I wash my hands of your inadvertent scatological associations; you've been warned.