Affected versus Effected

This is not a blog about grammar. In various previous entries, I have mentioned the fact that I place communication above grammatical rules or “correctness”, and sometimes consciously disregard both grammatical rules and correctness.

I should perhaps also acknowledge that I am far from perfect, and while some of my “mistakes” are intentional, many of my grammatical mistakes are totally unintentional, and do nothing to enhance communication. I believe I may have already mentioned that I tend to misuse the word “several” (which I grew up believing included as few as “two”).

One of the most common grammatical difficulties in the English language is confusing “affected” and “effected”, and it is something that I personally struggle with. There are many web pages devoted to this problem, and there is no point in my attempting to deal with it in detail here, since I myself still find the subject confusing.

A few general rules: Affect is most often a verb, while effect is most often a noun (though there are certainly exceptions). Affect, in its verb form, usually means “to impact”, while effect deals with a result. A good tip is that affect generally deals with something pre-existing, while effect can bring something into existence.

The POINT of this brief discussion is to acknowledge that I have difficulty with this topic, and to apologize for the times when I am sure I will make mistakes in this blog.

Truth is complicated.