Monday, September 12, 2016

Interesting words: Affect and effect

This has long been one of my favorite pairs of words, because both are verbs and nouns and their meanings are related, but not identical.  I recently subscribed to The Word Blog and saw this pair and it reminded me to write about them.  But this post is my own.

  • Affect as a verb means "to have an effect on" or to do something to. 
  • Affect as a noun means "an emotion".
  • Effect as a verb means to bring about or accomplish; to do something.
  • Effect as a noun means something that is produced by a cause. 
and we also have  the adjectival forms
  • Affective meaning "emotional"
  • Effective meaning "producing the [intendend] purpose"
Which leads to some fun possible sentences!

His affect affected me and its effect was affective: I was upset; but his intent was to make up - his affect was not effective. 

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