Not to understand the difference between affect and effect?

[Tinseltower]

I looked up the definitions and still none the wiser. Been in a school revision site and still don’t get it! What is wrong with me! If anyone can explain to me very simply and with examples I’d really appreciate it!

Affect relates to emotions...

The arrow affects the aardvark. As long as I can remember that I am sorted.

Practise is a verb, practice is a noun. But if you're not used to noticing which words are verbs and which are nouns, that will require a bit of thought every time you're trying to work out which to use.

I really need to learn what nouns and verbs are. I'm feeling really dumb reading this.

YANBU to be confused, but please ignore all the posters claiming that the difference is that one is a verb and the other a noun as they are simply wrong. "Effect" can perfectly well be a verb.
The correct answer is given by ehct together with examples of use,

Rat simplistically, nouns are "things" e.g. mug, towel or in the case of "effect", an emotion. Verbs are "doing words", e.g. running, jumping, crying.

Ratinthehat:
Assuming you really want to know and are not just being humorous:
At the most basic level:
noun=what you call something eg school, house, dog, bus, child - and also more abstract stuff like justice, practice, skill [hence effect and affect can both also be nouns]
verb=when you do something eg run, walk, write, jump, sit and all the variations according to who's doing them and when

Knowing the technical terms is less important than using them effectively in writing and speech.

drquin I think you meant to say "affect" is an emotion?

The effect of the rain is affecting my house.

You can’t be ‘effecting’ something so if you can manipulate to affecting you can make it make sense.

But you can be 'effecting change' surely?

You can have an effect on change or affect change but you wouldn’t personally be effecting change.

I think.

I get asked this at least once a month at work. I seem to be the designated office affect / effect expert.

I didn't realise affect could be a noun though.

Yes you can effect change. That's one of my stock examples. (Unless I'm very wrong)

You can have an effect on change or affect change but you wouldn’t personally be effecting change.

I personally effected a change in marking policy in school. It affected the average time spent marking with no adverse effect on student performance.

windowdresser44:

no, you are right. If I gave up alcohol (haha) I would be effecting a change in my habits.

I affect someone by pushing them. The effect is that they fall over.

PurpleDaisies: nice one

"I didn't realise affect could be a noun though"

Yes, one of the things that sucked about ds2 having sn was all these people using "affect" as a noun. It did my head in.

@idontlikealdi Utterly wrong I’m afraid! You can indeed effect change.

In the nicest possible way, please don’t comment unless you know you’re right because it only serves to confuse OP further.

What if you just think you're right? :)

This is maybe a situation where crowd sourcing is not a good idea :)

I don't think you can affect change..... it's not a concept that makes sense :)

I don't think you can affect change..... it's not a concept that makes sense

You could affect the rate of change.

Yes, but not change itself :)

@Tippexy thanks for that but I’m effecting change isn’t grammatically correct.

Oh, and re: practice/practise. Someone once told me to substitute for advice/advise in the sentence and you'll get the right one. For example, if someone is following best practice - you'd say 'best advice' rather than 'best advise' so you know you got the right spelling.
I'm not sure I explained that very well!