Effects and impacts. People, especially those in authority talking about the ongoing economic crisis are being careful in choosing the words they use to describe its severity. On the one hand they don't want to underestimate it, but on the other hand they don't want to be too alarmist about it. Comparing the words "effects" and "impacts", the first sounds softer than the second, like "účinok" sounds softer than "dopad".

Other words such as "influence" ("vplyv") are not strong enough, while "blow" ("úder") or "hit" ("zásah") might be too violent - although employees who are laid off probably consider these words appropriate. Switching to verbs, "to have an effect" is "to affect", and "to have an impact" is expressed more and more frequently as "to impact", fitting the English tendency for word categories all to have the same form, whether noun, verb, adjective and even adverb.