Hello all!

Today I’m starting a new series of posts to try to answer your burning questions about which word to use! English is a beautiful, descriptive language, but it also contains a whole lot of confusing word pairs. I’m hoping that in the weeks to come, I can help bring clarity to some of that confusion, so you’ll always know which word you’re really searching for.

I’m going to start with one of the most widely used–and misused–pairs: effect and affect. If you find these two words frustrating, rest assured that you’re not alone! Most people wander around never quite sure which is the verb and which is the noun. The reason none of us can seem to keep that straight is probably that they are actually both verbs and both nouns in certain cases. But the good news is that one is usually the noun and the other is usually the verb, so if you can remember that, you’ll be correct 98 percent of the time!

Generally, we use the words affect and effect when we’re talking about something causing something else. In these vast majority of cases, affect is the verb and effect is the noun. So, “One possible effect of global warming is climate change” and “Global warming might affect our planet by causing climate change.” One way to remember which is which is that affect has one “e,” just like the word verb, so affect is the verb. Whatever trick you find to work for you, if you can remember affect as a verb and effect as a noun, you’ll almost always be right.

Now, you might be wondering about those other cases, when affect becomes a noun and effect a verb. Both of those are quite rare, so feel free to ignore those cases and just focus on remembering the rule above! But if you want to know… We use effect as a verb to mean “to bring about an outcome”; it’s most common in the phrase “to effect change.” We use affect as a noun to talk about the mood that someone appears to have; this use is pretty much limited to psychology, to describe things like “he displayed a depressed affect.”

So, which word should you use? Affect (with its one “e”) as a verb and effect as a noun! Go forth, and conquer all your causal writing!

See you next time!