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8 Tips To Help You Master 'Affect' and 'Effect'

By Roy Peter Clark

Live inside the English language long enough, begin to see grammar as glamorous, and you will experience many sweet moments of epiphany. The light may shine, for example, when you solve a language puzzle that has long left you baffled. It's the same kind of rush as when you've mastered a new dance step or an elegant new jazz riff on the piano.

It took a long time for me to conquer the distinction between "affect" and "effect," an admission for which I feel no shame. Young writers -- and some prose pros -- confuse these words all the time. To get them straight, you may still have to look them up, the way I have to look up the spelling of "judgment" --or is it "judgement?" Just a sec ... as I was saying, "judgment."

Before we tackle the verb forms of these sound-alike words, let's dispense with the nouns. You are likely to bump into the noun "effect," meaning "that which is caused," all the time, as in: "What is the difference between a rule and a tool? A rule is about right and wrong, a tool about cause and effect." Or perhaps a protester does not really care about an issue but is waving and shouting and cursing "for effect."

The noun form of "affect" (stress on the first syllable) refers to the face that you show the world: "The detective began to suspect the victim's mother because, even at predictably emotional moments, she retained a flat affect."

As a verb, "effect" is almost always used with the object "change": "To effect change, voters threw the incumbents out of office." In this case, "effect" means "to bring about." The more common verb "affect" can be defined as "to influence": "The death of his father did not affect the quality of his play. He was as steady as ever."

So you "effect" a change, but you "affect" just about everything else. Which brings me to a trick of language I have been too embarrassed to reveal -- until now. Call it "Clark's Wager." I once learned about a way of looking at the universe called "Pascal's Wager." It refers to a metaphysical bet made by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. In thinking about the existence of God and the possibility of eternal rewards or punishments, he argued, perhaps mischievously, that, with the stakes that high, it was better to bet on God than against Him.

In "Clark's Wager" the stakes are much lower. When it comes to noun forms, I bet on "effect," because it is more common. But with the verb forms, I'll wager on "affect," because "chances are" I'll be correct. I'm not bragging about this, believe me. I've used the same dodgy approach to commas, periods and quotations marks.

In American English, as opposed to British English, we place the comma and period inside the quotation marks as in "The Brits don't know their bums from their bumbershoots." So if I'm not certain, in a hurry, and without a handy reference -- I give those little marks some shelter from the cold -- unless, of course, I'm in London visiting the queen.

Summary

• As a noun "effect" is more common than "affect."
• The noun "effect" means "that which is caused."
• The noun "affect" refers to the face we show the world.
• The verb "affect" is more common than "effect."
• The verb "affect" means "to influence."
• The verb "effect" means "to bring about" and is often used with the object "change."
• In a crunch, use Clark's Wager: bet on the most common usage.
• If you bet wrong, be ready to thank a copy editor for saving your ass.

Full post as published by Writing Tools on November 24, 2009 (boomark / email).