Affect vs. Effect

So the hope in writing a post on my OTN super duper early in this website is twofold.

1) I will get a handle on it a bit more and maybe help others in the future.

2) If this website takes off my deep dark grammatical failure will be hidden away in the recesses of time.

Not to be dramatic though.

I have read a lot of descriptors about how to use affect and effect. I have heard all of the tips and tricks. A is for Action and that is Affect (a verb!). E is for End result and that is Effect (a noun!). I have put it in order so it spells RAVEN (Remember! Affect is a Verb! Effect is a Noun!) If it was as easy as that, then I wouldn’t be here, lamenting my inability to keep the two straight.

Affect

Let’s start with Affect. The Verb. A refresher on verbs? Merriam-Webster considers the essential meaning of a verb “a word that is usually one of the main parts of a sentence and that expresses an action, an occurrence, or a state of being.”

If you are impacting something, you are probably affecting it. If you act on something, you are affecting it. If you change something, you are affecting it. If you influence or improve something, you are affecting it. Now, just in case you are thinking “well of course this is all very straight forward” I have two more for you. If you have steady, unchanging, baseline emotions, you have flat affect. Another, in case you were still feeling confident. If you are pretentious, or you are pretending to be someone you’re not trying to impress other people, you affect that trait. You can affect an accent. I mean, please don’t. But you could.

If Thing A is doing something to PRODUCE a desired result, then it is affect.

Effect

The noun! Similarly to its precursor, I will start with the Merriam-Webster definition. “A word that is the name of something (such as a person, animal, place, thing, quality, idea, or action) and is typically used in a sentence as subject or object of a verb or as object of a preposition.” I personally find this one helps me less but in the interest of treating these words fairly I pursue.

If the subject experiences the thing, it is effect. If you can replace “effect” with the word “result” or “consequence” then you have used it right (for most applications). If you are effective, you are successful. This is the end result.

Examples? Sure.

“This will take effect tomorrow.”

“Despite how many he had downed, the beer seemed to have no effect.”

“Nurse April handed over the husband’s personal effects.”

Closing thoughts

I read that if there’s an “a”/”an”/”the” in front of the subject/object then that’s a pretty good way to determine that the correct word is effect. I haven’t tested this myself but it seems to check out so far.

Just because I am an Agent of Chaos I will give you a counterintuitive example. It is better to effect change than it is to affect change. To affect change means that you are impacting the change, which is pretty good. To effect change is to create and bring about change. That is a much stronger movement in most everyone’s opinion.

Because affect and effect are my OTN, this post was hard to write. Even though I spent a week reading articles on the difference. This is a call to all Grammar Nazis. Please comment if you see something in this post that represents affect and effect poorly (besides my attitude). I’d love the opportunity to reign victorious over my nemesis!

Primary Sources:

• Affect vs. Effect by Alice E. M. Underwood
  • https://www.grammarly.com/blog/affect-vs-effect/
• “Affect” or “Effect”: Use the Correct Word Every Time
  • https://www.touro.edu/departments/writing-centre/tutorials/affect-or-effect/
• Commonly Confused Words affect/effect
  • https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/affect-effect/
• Merriam-Webster Definitions and Commonly Confused Words
  • https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/affect-vs-effect-useage-difference