Affect Vs Effect

[EdithGrantham]

I've read up on how to use each of these properly, had it explained to me many times in many ways and I still cannot get it. Occasionally I'll be confident that effect is right but I'm less sure when I should use affect. Am I right in saying it can never be "an affect" and could someone please tell me the correct one in these sentences to try and make it finally make sense to me.

The traffic really effects/affects my journey time.

The traffic effected/affected my journey time.

Affects/affected is correct in both of those examples OP - it's the action rather than the result.

I remember it by the 'a' in affect standing for the 'a' in action. The effect is the result of the action (if that makes any sense...!)

Thank you, I will try remembering it that way!

Affect is almost always a verb, or doing word, as above. Effect is almost always a noun, a thing: "The weather has a huge effect on my mood." "The weather affects my mood."

The English language being the beast it is, there are times when "affect" can be a noun and "effect" can be a verb, but they're pretty obscure and you're not likely to need to use them.

So is there any (non-obscure) time when effected is correct?

I find these really hard.

I remember it from the abbreviation of (special) effects as "FX". So the noun is effects and the verb is affects.
(Except if you are talking about a person's "affect" in psychology for example).

I realise my logic may not make sense to anyone else! 🤣

I've given up and just use 'impact' instead.
I was educated in Norfolk in the 70s. We sung a lot of Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel etc but didn't do a great deal of grammar. We did some punctuation but nouns, verbs, affect m, effect etc....nope. It was problematic when I came to learn German.

Not that I can think of - the only usage that I'd ever really use is 'it effects a change' or 'it effected a change' to mean 'bring about a change'.

'Affect' as a noun means 'mood' (loosely).

So, normally, the 'effect' is the noun. Affect is the verb. I can't think of a catchy way to remember it, the 'A means Action' is as good as any!

effect is more often a verb than affect is a noun. In fact ignore affect as a noun @EdithGrantham as it's only used in specific scientific/psychological terms.

Effect as a verb means "to bring about" (rather than "to make a difference to", which is affect) - "the burglar effected an entry through the window" or "we effected a change in our circumstances". But mostly effect = noun and affect = verb.

Haha, that makes no sense to me at all but I'm glad you've found a away to remember it!

That's what I did all through uni but I'd really like to get it right in emails and messages now

@clary and @WalkInAStraightLine thanks!

The traffic really affects my journey time. Correct
The traffic really effects my journey time. Incorrect
The traffic affected my journey time. Correct
The traffic effected my journey time. Incorrect

'The side effects of my medication do not affect you'

That's how I remember it.

Thank you.
Can you give explanations as to why each example is correct or incorrect?
That will help me learn.

I use a similar thing.

The effects of the medicine really affects my mood.

that’s an appalling sentence but you get my drift.

Thanks to both of you - the only explanations that have made sense to me so far 😄

I believe to effect, is the correct verb for describing how a change can be made to happen. Two examples are “Pressing the accelerator effects a change in speed.” or “The positioning of the giant tank is effected by using multiple cranes.”

But I will stand corrected.

The 'Incorrect' ones are using the wrong verb.
Roughly:
Effected means cause something to happen.
Affected means change something.

The traffic changed your journey time, it didn't cause your journey time to happen.

It would be a perfectly good sentence if you either took the 's' off the word 'affects' or the word 'effects'!

Thanks - I was being a bit lazy!

I think the simplest way to remember it is that affect is usually a verb and effect is usually a noun.

Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun (except in rare cases, which you can happily ignore!).

One way to help you get it right is that 'affect' will almost always have a thing or a person right before it in a sentence (though there might sometimes be another word between them, like the 'really' in @Tulipvase ' example.. 'Effect' will not. When you use 'affect', you should be able to ask yourself 'who or what is affecting?'. e.g. in that example 'What affects my mood?' 'The effect of the medicine!'

True, but not everyone finds it easy to identify what is a verb or a noun in a sentence!