Sound-alike Words: Affect/Effect

This month we cover two little words that drive people nutso. (That's an erudite word related in etymology to batso.) Affect and effect confuse so many, people often avoid using them for fear of making a mistake. Fear not! Let ExcitingWriting be your guide.

Let's begin with the most common confusion between these two words.

Affect is a verb meaning to cause or influence an outcome. Thus, ''The poor employment market affected the housing numbers.''

Effect is a noun describing the result of a cause. Thus, ''The after-effects of the drug lingered.'' Or, ''The long-term effects of running a large deficit cannot be ignored.''

I know you are already confused so I'm going to give you a model you can easily memorize or refer to. It cuts through all the confusion:

It is thought that an overabundance of carbon dioxide affects global warming. The effects of global warming are everywhere around us, from polar icecaps to equatorial jungles. Note: ''effects'' usually takes ''of'' after it. It's a noun.

Is that clear? Affect is the ''influence'' verb. ''A'' affects ''B.'' Effect is the ''result'' noun caused by the influence. If you can memorize that, you've got the problem more than half solved.

The trouble is these words have some specialized usages:

Affect

As a noun, affect means a feeling or the projection of a feeling. Psychologists and psychiatrists routinely use the word to describe the feeling a person puts out. ''He had a depressed affect.''

As a verb, affect means to put on airs. He affected an air of being above it all.
He affected an upper-crust accent.

When you think about it, both these uses are sort of related. They both have to do with appearances.

Effect

As a noun, effect means to make an impression or give an appearance, to have a basic intent. That painting gives the effect of floating.

Effect can be used to describe when someone does something for show: Her histrionics were designed for effects. After all, that's where we get the term sound effects.

Now we come to a very specialized usage: Effects can mean belongings when used in the plural. Before leaving jail, he picked up his personal effects.

If you cannot memorize all this, carry this issue of the EWA with you at all times! You never know when you will need it.

Next month: more sound-alike words.