Barsel. I think the point about spoken and written words is a good one. If you say "effect" instead of "affect", nobody will notice. If you write it out, they'll just presume it was a finger slip. Best wishes.
Thank you Atheist.
Funnily enough, when I wrote it down, I wrote affect and somehow it didn't look right and so that is why I asked.
Now I have changed it to effect, not only does it look right but having read all the replies it makes sense now too.
Did you see my post at 19.03?
Barsel, I did read your post and I have just re-read it and now realise that I was wrong, and misquoted. I guess I really did presume you were male. Sorry about that.
That's ok. APG referred to me as a male a little while ago and so I put the record straight with her, but it got into a bit of a fisty cuffs.
You have the manners to apologise for your mistake and that's fine by me. You are a true gentleman. x
Defined by these two near-pensionable men...'So did I tell you that I was told that having an enormous penis has the side effect of affecting one's short term memory?'
9 times out of 10, if not more, effect is a noun. Think of Special FX in movies, which means special effects, and they're nouns ie things. It helps that the F of FX is pronounced eff, not aff.
99 times out of 100, if not more, affect is a verb. A doing word. A word that acts on something. A for Act, A for Affect.