Month: October 2008

“Affect” vs. “Effect”

Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Nouns, Verbs, Versus

I often see and hear mistakes with these two words.

Problem:
These words are spelled similarly but have different meanings.

Explanation:
The word “affect” is spelled A-F-F-E-C-T.

  • As a verb, the word “affect” means to act on or to produce a change in, as in “You can affect her attitude toward education.”
  • As a noun, the word “affect” means emotion or feeling, as in “The psychiatrist said that the patient’s affect could be a symptom of schizophrenia.”

The word “effect” is spelled E-F-F-E-C-T.

  • As a verb, the word “effect” means to bring about or make happen, as in “Many people believe that he cannot effect the change that he is promoting.”
  • As a noun, the word “effect” means consequence or result, as in “The effects of Hurricane Ike could be seen throughout Houston and Galveston.”

It is a common English blunder — at least in American English — to use one of these verbs as a substitute for the other one. It is also a common English blunder to use one of these nouns as a substitute for the other one.

I believe that mistaken interchanging of these two words is due to mispronunciations, which drive misspellings.

Solution:
Memorize the verb and noun definitions of these two words.

“These extra-ordinary times called for extra-ordinary actions.”

Adjectives, Hyphens, Misspellings

I saw this in a corporate message.

Problem:
The adjective is misspelled.

Explanation:
The correct spelling of the twice-used adjective in the sentence should have no hyphen.

I believe that the insertion of the hyphen reflects the writer’s discomfort with the presence of adjacent vowels that are parts of separate syllables.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following spellings (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “extraordinary” — spelled E-X-T-R-A-O-R-D-I-N-A-R-Y — 65,500,000 matches
  • “extra-ordinary” — spelled E-X-T-R-A-HYPHEN-O-R-D-I-N-A-R-Y — 1,470,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have spelled this adjective correctly versus incorrectly by a ratio of 44.6-to-1, which is good but not great, especially given the nearly 1.5 million misspellings.

Solution:
“These extraordinary times called for extraordinary actions.”

“Assure” vs. “Ensure” vs. “Insure”

Common English Blunders, Verbs, Versus

I often hear mistakes with these three verbs.

Problem:
These verbs are spelled similarly but have different meanings.

Explanation:
The verb “assure” — spelled A-S-S-U-R-E — means to state with confidence to, as in “I assure you that the ambulance will arrive within seven minutes.”

The verb “ensure” — spelled E-N-S-U-R-E — means to guarantee or secure, as in “This badge will ensure your entrance to the stadium.”

The verb “insure” — spelled I-N-S-U-R-E — means to guarantee against harm or loss, as in “The company insures 500,000 customers.”

It is a common English blunder — at least in American English — to use one of these verbs as a substitute for another of these verbs.

Solution:
Memorize the definitions of the three verbs.