Affect, effect

Hi folks,

I really love this site, it reminds me of the apostrophe protection society blog. Very interesting!

Anyway, I believe there is a very simple method to differentiate between effect and affect.

When used as nouns, the difference is pretty obvious.
An effect is a result of an action, while an affect is a feeling or emotion.

When used as verbs:
Effect is an active verb: 'The government effected swift decreases in the unemployment level.'
Affect is a passive verb: 'The unemployment level was positively affected by new government policies.'

If you have any trouble figuring out the difference between the active and passive tense, the trick is the word by. Usually, if there is a clause at the end of a sentence starting with by, the verb is passive. In the first sentence, the subject (government) is the actor. In other words the subject carried out an action. In the second sentence, the subject (unemployment level) is acted upon by a different entity.

However, affect can also be used in an active sense, but the context is different, ‘Mike affected an English accent to disguise his Irish roots’.

This of course is only my humble opinion, put together in the days before Google. So, I’d like to hear any comments on my theory, good or bad. If any of my sweeping grammatical statements are incorrect, I’ll have to shift the blame onto my English teacher of yore.

Cheerio!

Could you please tell if this is correct, please.

'A lot of symptoms that one person has won't affect some one else'

I'm starting to get a grasp of the difference, but this example has got me.

Thanks in advance!

i still don't get it i guess....

why don't these two sentences use the same word in question?

--Mike affected an English accent to disguise his Irish roots.
--When the government effected tax cuts, everyone received a larger paycheck.

it seems that they are both used as a verb, meaning to accomplish/bring about.

"Nothing you say can _________ (affect=have an effect on?, effect?) my decision."

actually, this one's a tricky one. technically, you can use either word here without affecting the outcome of the sentence. the only difference is between the active and the passive voice of the action. using 'effect' in this case would be using it in the sense of 'change', which is active. it's also a very peculiar way to say it though, so affect is probably the clearer option to go for.

and, just to be exacting, the word to use in the original question is definitely 'affect' because we're not talking about a psychological emotional change - it's a physical change, and therefore requires the use of the verb, and not the noun.

What would be correct for this sentence?

During the hospitalization, the patient's (affect, effect) became more appropriate.

HELP!!