All the grammar rules that annoy buffistas are things I struggle with... Things with which I struggle.
As a dyslexic person, I should not be as RAAAAH as I am about grammar. My spelling and sentence construction are... interesting. The fact that I happen to 'feel' my way through grammar fairly successfully is not anything that I achieved for myself.
I have trouble with the actual rule for affect/effect. I just know which one looks right and which one looks wrong. (You would not believe the grammar-rule-learning work I had to put in before I could teach linguistics.)
That's the problem with effect and affect. One's normally a noun and one's a verb, except when one's a verb and one's a noun.
One's normally a noun and one's a verb, except when one's a verb and one's a noun.
Quick, someone write a sentence that uses all four possibilities!
Wrong. As a verb, "effect" means "to bring about." Like, "In her job, smonster effects change in the way students recycle."
But but but.. isn't that a pretty recent usage? B/c I hates it, precious.
"The effect of the effected change affected my affect"?
Or no wait... I think I have effect as a verb confused with impact as a verb. THAT'S the one I loathe.
Damn, can't even keep linguistic peccadillos straight.
Wrong. As a verb, "effect" means "to bring about." Like, "In her job, smonster effects change in the way students recycle."
But but but.. isn't that a pretty recent usage? B/c I hates it, precious.
I think it's relatively recently accepted (like m vs. n dashes [look at me trying to start a new debate!] This one always throws me because I got marked off on an otherwise brilliant essay mumble-mumble years ago in high school for using it this way.
I study the way in which affect (e.g. observable emotion) is associated with cognitive processing, so an entirely reasonable sentence in one of my papers might be "The effect of affect on task effectiveness was not affected by experimental condition."
Not that any normal person would ever have a reason to read this sort of thing.
"The effect of the effected change affected my affect"?
Doing the dance of linguistic genius.
