{"id":7391,"date":"2020-06-04T16:57:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/?p=7391"},"modified":"2020-06-05T09:48:22","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T13:48:22","slug":"affect-or-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/affect-or-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Affect or Effect?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Image by atomicqq from Pixabay, CCO<\/p><\/div>\n

Not long ago, I received a text from an old friend. \u201cHey!\u2019 he wrote, \u201cWhich of these sentences is correct?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have the effect<\/strong> that we were hoping for.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have the affect<\/strong> that we were hoping for.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I quickly replied that he wanted to use #1. His response was, \u201cThanks! This is going to a client and I need to get it right. I can never remember the difference.\u201d He went on to promise me that he\u2019d buy me an adult beverage the next time we meet up. That\u2019s a blatant lie, but no matter. I\u2019m happy that friends think of me when situations like that arise.<\/p>\n

    However, this week I read two separate articles where the authors used the wrong word. This drives me crazy because a) these are paid professional writers, and b) those writers have paid professional editors to look for mistakes like that. If my friend can text me to make sure he hasn\u2019t made a mistake, why can\u2019t professionals get it right?<\/p>\n

    The answer, of course, is that it\u2019s a common grammatical mistake, further complicated by the fact that the words are practically homophones<\/strong>. If you are in a hurry, even if you sound it out, you can easily be confused. And here\u2019s the really crazy part \u2013 they share more than a similar sound. For instance, they have the same Latin root, facere<\/em>. Affect derives from the Latin word afficere<\/em>, meaning \u201cto do something.\u201d Effect comes from the Latin word efficere<\/em>, meaning \u201cto make something.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Affect<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    In English, affect is a transitive verb<\/strong>, meaning \u201cto act upon.\u201d Put it another way, it means to produce an effect. That\u2019s right. Look up affect in almost any dictionary and it will be defined as something which causes an effect. It\u2019s also, and I\u2019m not kidding, a noun meaning \u201can emotional state.\u201d We get the words affection and affectionate from the same root.<\/p>\n

    Effect<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Effect, in English, is a noun<\/strong> meaning \u201ca result.\u201d When my friend texted me, I simply substituted the word \u201cresult\u201d for effect, and, presto, I knew that effect was the word he wanted. An effect is the result of an action. Also, nouns take grammatical articles<\/strong>, like the<\/em> or an<\/em>. Remember his sentence? “The effect…”<\/p>\n

    But, and I am not kidding, effect can sometimes be used as a verb meaning \u201cto make happen.\u201d We may say that we want to effect change. In this case, effect is a verb.<\/p>\n

    How to Avoid Confusion<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    At this point, I wouldn\u2019t blame you for hating me and the English language. But there\u2019s no need to throw your English dictionaries out the window. More than 90% of the time, affect is used as a verb and effect is used as a noun. Using a few common memory tricks, you will be right almost every time.<\/p>\n

    RAVEN<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    \u00a0<\/strong>When you have to decide which word to use, remember Edgar Alan Poe\u2019s<\/strong> big, black bird, the raven. R<\/strong>emember, A<\/strong>ffect is a V<\/strong>erb, and E<\/strong>ffect is a N<\/strong>oun. That\u2019s it. If you can keep the\u00a0RAVEN<\/strong> in the back of your mind, you will have this problem \u201cnevermore.\u201d It might also help you to know that more than one raven is called \u201can unpleasantness of ravens.\u201d If you\u2019ve had problems remembering the difference between affect and effect more than once, then you know that it is unpleasant.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

    Not long ago, I received a text from an old friend. \u201cHey!\u2019 he wrote, \u201cWhich of these sentences is correct? \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have the effect that we were hoping for.\u201d \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have the affect that we were hoping for.\u201d I quickly replied that he wanted to use #1. His response was, \u201cThanks! This is…<\/p>\n

    Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":7392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[134956,135139],"tags":[6,13],"class_list":["post-7391","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-grammar","category-english-language","tag-grammar","tag-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7391"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7395,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391\/revisions\/7395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}