Finally, to great effect, your unaffected radio hosts explain the difference between affect and effect. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Affect and Effect”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Jean calling from Indianapolis, Indiana.
Hiya, Jean, how are you?
Hello, Jean.
Great.
Well, do you have a question for us today?
My question is concerning the words affect and effect, and when is the right time to use those, and have the rules changed since I was in high school?
The second question is easy. No, the rules haven’t changed.
Okay.
So what are the rules?
I guess the best thing to say here first that the noun effect and the noun affect are mixed up all the time. But the thing is, affect as a noun is really rare, very rare. It’s almost only used in psychological or pseudo-psychological context. I mean, it’s just kind of like a jargon word. So really, for most of us, affect with an E is the only noun that we need to care about in this whole big muddled mess. So just remember that, first of all.
So you can say, he had an effect on me. He made me change my mind. E-fact. It’s about effect, right? You would never say, he had an affect on me. He made me change my mind. It’s not the A, all right?
Okay.
And then on the other side, when we start talking about the verbs, we generally find the opposite is true, that affect is almost always the verb, and effect is very rarely the verb, except in very specific jargon cases.
Okay, good.
So the rules are the same as what I learned in high school.
Yeah, they’re not different, are they?
Thank goodness. Some things don’t change.
Well, thank you for helping me with that.
All right.
You’re welcome.
Bye-bye.
Take care, yourself.
Bye-bye.
Grant, the way I remember this is I always think of Virginia and Nebraska.
I don’t get it.
You don’t get it.
Let me explain.
Think of the postal addresses for Virginia and Nebraska, V-A and N-E. So V-A for affect. Affect is always a verb. N-E for effect. Effect is always a noun, almost always a noun.
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