Affect or effect

[jofeb04]

Hi All,

I always get confused with affect and effect. I have to write
"so any information you give will effect the next year" in a piece of work.

Should it be effect (as above), or affect?

And will I ever understand the difference? :o

I think it's effect. I think effect is a noun and affect is a verb, but I could be wrong

No, it should be affect (I mis-read your sentence)

Affect - verb

Effect - noun

Thanks for that .... still don't really understand it though lol (possibly because I pronounce them both the same way - accents! - I don't really notice the difference).

There is a more obscure sense in which you can use effect as a verb, and a very obscure and technical sense in which you can use affect as a noun, but they have quite different meanings. So if you are using the words in their normal senses then just remember the effect = noun, affect = verb principle.

Just to confuse you, effect can be used as a verb, but not interchangeably with affect.

Effect as a verb means roughly "to bring about", "to execute". It is relatively uncommon and formal.

an e.g. I just found googling: "The new manager effected some positive changes in the office." (This means that the new manager caused some positive changes to take place in the office.)

as a comparison: "The new manager affected some changes in the office" would mean that the changes were already taking place and the new manager modified or stopped them.

ah, the Professor beat me to it!

What would be great would be a little rhyme or something similar (sorry if this lowers the tone) because, it also takes me ages to remember what a noun and a verb is!! Actually, not too bad with verb (thanks to French teachers).

Sun, I agree with the rhyme idea!

Thanks all

Mostly affect is the verb and effect the noun (think "cause and effect" to remember which is the noun). E.g. "I affect this Ming vase by hitting it. The effect of me hitting it is that it breaks".

"To effect" means something along the lines of to bring into being, to make happen, to bring about. Think of a languid, upper crust detective in a 1930s novel saying to his sidekick as the evil henchmen break down
the front door, "Now would be a good time to effect our escape, Carruthers."

"Affect" is used as a noun in psychology, I think, to describe the emotional content of a thought process. So, e.g., when I had
hyperthyroidism, my doctor asked me if I was anxious, and I explained I had the whizzy-can't-stop-thoughts-whirling-round state one associates with anxiety, but without the affect (I wasn't actually worried or
anxious, there was no emotional distress involved).