Remember that a comes before e in the alphabet and that is true of these two words, you will have needed to affect something in order to achieve an effect: “The damp which affected her health was an unfortunate effect of the winter weather.” For example: “The fire hose ban is in effect today”. “In effect” means that which is currently effective. The quick rule of thumb here is that the phrase “in affect” does not exist. Again they are using the word to identify the result of an action. This is the same when people write “with immediate effect”. Effect is the noun and the direct cause, so you would “take effect”. Once you know the difference between the verb and the noun, this one is easy. The noun would be used to identify the result: “What effect has her mother’s death had on her?” Take Effect or Take Affect? So if you are describing the influence something has on someone, you could say “She was deeply affected by her mother’s death”. This basically means that verbs are used to describe and nouns are used to identify. The correct usage obviously depends upon the context but for a simple explanation let’s start with the fact that affect is a verb and effect is a noun. Now we can see the other reason why people get these two words so confused, for not only do they sound the same but their meanings are very similar too and in fact as with most English words, there are rare exceptions when each word can be swapped around, but let’s stick with the basic meaning and have a look at the two words in context. Affect (verb): make a difference to (bring about). Effect (noun): the result or consequence of something. Let’s take a look at their individual meanings: If this has affected you then read on to discover the difference between the two. They both sound the same don’t they? So it’s easy to see why so many people get them wrong. It’s a widespread problem largely to do with the pronunciation of each word – try saying them out loud yourself. One of the more common mistakes is confusing the word affect for effect. Is it any wonder then, that we sometimes forget how to use words in their correct context? The English language can be incredibly complicated and to date the Oxford English Dictionary lists 171,476 words in common usage and 47,156 obsolete words.įurthermore, this by no means covers the whole of the English language, which is thought to consist of at least a quarter of a million words!
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