3 ms·
You may be interested to know --- well, I find it interesting --- that there are lesser known meanings of 'affect' and 'effect' which are the other way round. Y
by david-given 11y ago
You may be interested to know --- well, I find it interesting --- that there are lesser known meanings of 'affect' and 'effect' which are the other way round. You can effect a change, where 'effect' a verb. And people can have an affect, where 'affect' is a noun largely synonymous to 'mood'.
I believe it's even possible to affect affects by effecting an affect effect, in effect. English is weird.
(Linguistic tangents are best tangents!)
- logfromblammo 11y agoYou may be able to distinguish between mood-noun "affect" and influence-verb "affect" by pronunciation. I place the emphasis for the former on the first syllable, just as in "affectation" whereas the emphasis is on the second syllable in the latter. So they are homonyms, but not exactly homophones. I never liked the verb sense of effect. It always seemed to me to be too much like a managementspeak verbizating torturement of the ordinary noun sense of effect. Obviously, the verb sense means "to produce an effect", but are you really gonna diss the perfectly cromulent already-existing word that has meant that for longer--"affect"? ~ In condimentarius scriptor apostrophe delenda est.