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Date: | Tue, 8 Jun 2004 10:29:53 -0700 |
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I haven't used this, but it might be helpful to equate 'affect' with
'have an impact on'. If a mnemonic is needed, 'impact' does have an 'a' ...
I don't see 'effect' as an exception. It has a completely different
meaning: to bring into being. It is also a pretty rare word. Students
will be safe 99% of the time if they go for 'affect' as the first choice
for verb.
'Affect' as a noun is also quite rare outside of texts with
psychological topics. It's a safe rule of thumb that students should
choose 'effect' when they need a noun.
Of course, all that is assuming that they know the difference between
noun and verb and take the time to think about it when writing or
editing. My students are getting better at this, but only because I come
down on them really hard about it and have a web page that covers many
of the most common problems. I think this is lowering my student
evaluation scores, but I'm getting a few better papers!!!
Unfortunately, when something affects something else, we also say that
that something has an effect on the something else. I don't know if this
would confuse students or help them, but usually my students appreciate
it when I give explanation like this. It helps them understand where
the confusion comes from, apart from the pronunciation. I say it's crazy
that the language does this, but that's just the way it is. I think they
forgive themselves a bit for the confusion when they get these explanations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184 • Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone. 756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] • Home page:
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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