Last night on the TiVo, Matt and I watched the famous “Moldavian Massacre” episode of Dynasty. I’d seen that it was coming up on SoapNet, so I recorded it and the following episode. I’d heard all about that famous cliffhanger, but I’d never actually seen it – I started watching the show a few months later, in early 1986, when Sammy Jo kidnapped Krystle and replaced her with her look-alike Rita. (Now that was high camp – but at 12 years old I saw it as suspenseful.)

Now, Matt often makes fun of my fondness for soaps, but he walked in toward the end of the episode last night, sat down on the couch and watched it with me, and then, at the end, when everyone was lying on the floor of the church in a pool of blood, said excitedly, “Did you record the next episode?”

So we watched the first 15 minutes and then started Lost. Interestingly, Dynasty in 1985 aired on ABC on Wednesday nights at 9. Lost currently airs on ABC on Wednesday nights at 9. How TV has changed. Or not so much.

If anyone’s interested, SoapNet is currently airing Season 6, which includes the Krystle/Rita episodes. Next Wednesday and Thursday it airs parts one and two of the two-hour special episode that launched the Dynasty spinoff, The Colbys, which my cousin and I watched almost religiously for two years before it was unceremoniously cancelled, leaving Fallon abducted by a UFO.

Reading over some work-related documents, I’ve decided I hate it when people use the word impact as a verb when they really mean affect.

However:

Usage Note: The use of impact as a verb meaning “to have an effect” often has a big impact on readers. Eighty-four percent of the Usage Panel disapproves of the construction to impact on, as in the phrase social pathologies, common to the inner city, that impact heavily on such a community; fully 95 percent disapproves of the use of impact as a transitive verb in the sentence Companies have used disposable techniques that have a potential for impacting our health. It is unclear why this usage provokes such a strong response, but it cannot be because of novelty. Impact has been used as a verb since 1601, when it meant “to fix or pack in,” and its modern, figurative use dates from 1935. It may be that its frequent appearance in the jargon-riddled remarks of politicians, military officials, and financial analysts continues to make people suspicious. Nevertheless, the verbal use of impact has become so common in the working language of corporations and institutions that many speakers have begun to regard it as standard. It seems likely, then, that the verb will eventually become as unobjectionable as contact is now, since it will no longer betray any particular pretentiousness on the part of those who use it. See Usage Note at contact.

I don’t care. I still hate it.

Next time: I rant again people who confuse effect and affect.

Nick writes about why he still identifies as a Mormon, even though he’s gay.