A Matter of Factors

I've often written that it is safer not to use 'long' or 'exotic' words unless you're really sure what they mean. Here's an example of a phrase that is neither long nor exotic, but still easily misused because the original context is overlooked.

The 'feel-good factor'. This term is a clever, fairly recent invention, intended to suggest an element in one's experience (such perhaps as sunny weather, good company, being flattered, or pride in one's nationality) that makes one feel good. A factor is by definition an element that affects an outcome. As a mathematical concept, it is a number that by multiplying or dividing (or being added or subtracted or whatever), changes the arithmetical outcome. By extension, it can be something else that affects an outcome (eg the weather, or someone's skill, or a windfall, or an accident, or sheer luck - good or bad).

So to write (as a contributor to a periodical recently did) "You won't get the buzz of applause . . . but you'll get a nice feel-good factor" shows that the author has misunderstood the term.. What he meant was just "you'll feel good". What originated as a piece of imaginative word-play (I wonder who coined the happy phrase ?) has now become a cliché. But factors are not feelings: you don't 'get'* them.

* Having written which, I expect to receive complaints: of course, someone will respond, you can get sunny weather, or you can get mumps: surely they can be factors that affect your life ? True: but I still insist that you cannot correctly talk or write of 'getting a factor'.

" Got any good factors lately ?"

A Matter of Factors