Affect vs Effect

[margotmetroland]

Has anyone got a handy rhyme/mnemonic/other thing to help them remember the difference between Affect and Effect? It's not for me (really!) it is for a colleague, and I can't think of a quick way of doing it atm.

Comments

[swisstone]

"When you affect something, it creates an effect"? I realize that it's not strictly true to say that affect is a verb and effect a noun, but the use of affect as noun and effect as verb are sufficiently rare that you could go with this as a broad rule of thumb.

[margotmetroland]

That's the kind of thing, thank you! And it will certainly do for this situation

[the_magician]

Indeed ... and even working in Technical Documentation there are still members of my team that get it wrong.

I could go on, but anyone that understands, already understands, and anyone that doesn't, isn't about to be entertained by examples of effect and affect the other way around :-)

[miss_soap]

RAVEN: Remember Affect Verb, Effect Noun.

I've never had issue with the difference, but it worked for my kids when I was teaching.

[margotmetroland]

Nice. That might just be what he needs, as he seems to respond well to the mnemonic rather than actual definition.

[moral_vacuum]

I've inherited my mother's thing with mnemonics - I remember the definition in order to remember the mnemonic.

[akicif]

Except, of course, when you want to effect a change in someone's affect....

[alexmc]

Effect is a thing.
Affect is what you do.

What more does one need to remember?

Anyone who tries to effect a change deserves whatever they get!

[margotmetroland]

I've already explained the first bit, but he needs a way to make it stay in his brain.

[chiller]

Um. But you do effect change.

And the change affects people.

That's "effect" as in "accomplish, make operative", as in "put into effect".

[hawkida]

Effects happen. Some of them are special. You don't get special affects.

[sushidog]

You don't get special affects.
Except in psychology, but that probably doesn't help, does it? :-)

[margotmetroland]

No dear.

[chiller]

The problem is, "effect" is both a noun and a verb. ie: something can have an effect (noun). Or something can "be effected" or put into effect (verb, as in "made it happen").

Affect is just a verb. Something can be affected (a foreign accent, a hat). Or be affected (suffer the effects of).

But the short version is:
Effected = done.
Affected = influence/influenced.

[perlmonger]

As sushidog pointed out, "affect" is a noun too; indeed, reading this thread, it took me a degree of mental rearrangement to remember that it's a verb. This probably says something deeply disturbing about my internal model of the world (and reminds me to ask gmul to return my Yalom if he doesn't bring it along when he visits tomorrow).

[chiller]

Not according to the OED, it ain't. ;)

[perlmonger]

Are you suggesting that psychotherapists don't speak proper English?

Ummm…

…

OK… I concede that you may have a point there.