Tip 641: Troublesome Words Six: Affect and Effect 2.0

From the Writing Workshops: Troublesome Words: “Affect” and “Effect,” Part Two

We’re continuing our trouble-some words discussion. 

Last week, thanks to Michelle Wallace, we talked about the principal (the main, the primary) definitions for affect and effect.

Affect is a verb. An action word. It means “to influence, change, or act upon.” “The outage affected (influenced, changed, acted upon) the system.”

Effect is a noun. A thing. It means “result, consequence, or outcome.” “The effect (the result, the consequence) of the outage was that we lost our payroll data.”

The Secondary Definitions

Each word has a second definition, but the second definition is so narrow, so specialized, you don’t really need to worry.

Affect as a noun, a thing, means “facial appearance” or “expression.” Psychologists use the word to describe changes in attitude. “Connor’s affect (expression) never changed when he heard he’d won the lottery.”

Effect as a verb, an action word, means “to produce” or “to bring about.” “The Beatles effected (produced, brought about) a huge change in the music of the 1960s.”

What we don’t want you to do is to skip affect and effect altogether and use impact: “The outage impacted the system. The impact was that we lost our payroll data.” Arrrggghhh.

This is fun. 

We’ll honor more requests next week