Tip 691: "Affect" and "Effect," The Secondary Definitions. Again.

From the Writing Workshops: “Affect” and “Effect,” The Secondary Definitions. Again.

Last week, we talked about the primary definitions of 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, we 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. “Sheila’s affect (expression) never changed when she heard she’d won the lottery.” But how often would we use that wording?

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.” Again, how often would we use that wording? It’s stilted and artificial. 

What we don’t want 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 love it. 

Next week, we’ll answer a special request: When do we use “sale” and when do we use “sell”? There’s a difference.