Affect Vs. Effect: The Final Conflict

Just in case you've forgotten some of the basics, here's a quick review before I begin your education. If you know this - and you should, you silly goose you - just move on to the meat of the article.

Noun - refers to a person, place, or thing. "Cheese" is a noun. Also, "poker." I'm going to be using the word "poker" a lot in hopes of luring gambling addicts into my important grammar lesson. A proper noun refers to a specific person, place, or thing. They are usually capitalized. "Mike" is a proper noun. Also, "Professor" and "Casino Royale."

Verb - refers to an action. This can be a physical action, like "to play." It can also be something you do passively, like "to think." I'm going to put "to" in front of all verbs when I introduce them, mostly to keep them straight from nouns, but also because that's the most basic form of a verb. It's called an infinitive. For some reason, in English, we have to add the word "to" when we form the infinitive of a verb - "I like to play poker." In most other languages, the infinitive of a verb is just one word - in French, "to play" is "jouer." I don't know why we did that. English pretty much sucks.

Adjective - this is a word that describes a noun. "Brown" is an adjective.

Adverb - this is a word that describes a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or pretty much anything except a noun. Words like "slowly," and "sideways" are adverbs. They're useful little buggers.

The Meat of the Article

Affect vs. Effect

Each of these words has a few different meanings, but mostly, "to affect" is a verb and "effect" is a noun. For example.

"The hand you are dealt affects how well you perform in poker."
"The worst effect would be losing your money."

See the difference? Maybe not. "To affect" means "to change." "Effect" means "result." So let's look at this a different way.

"The hand you are dealt changes how well you perform in poker."
"The worst result would be losing your money."

It's pretty clear, isn't it? You wouldn't say "The hand you are dealt results how well you perform in poker," and vice versa. So whenever you see "affect," replace it with "change." Whenever you see "effect," replace it with "result."

"His nausea affected CHANGED his performance in the game."
"The ultimate effect RESULT was that he played much less skillfully than usual."

This part is simple. It gets harder. There are other meanings to "effect" and "affect," and we'll go over them now. HOWEVER, bear in mind that these are uncommon usages, and if you think it's just going to confuse you, skip this bit.

"Affect," in addition to a verb meaning "to cause," can also be a noun. It means a certain, purposeful way of talking or presenting yourself - you might say that Christopher Walken has a unique affect. It's completely unrelated to the verb meaning, so don't get them confused. Also, it's pronounced "aah-fect," while the verb is pronounced "uh-fect."

"Effect" stays a noun, but in addition to a "result," it can refer to the items left behind after a person dies. These meanings are semi-related, but don't get them confused anyway.

An Apostrophe Does Not Mean, "Look Out! An 'S' Is Coming!"

So what does it mean? It's a way to make a noun possessive when it's not already. Remember, a noun is a person, place, or thing.

"Dad's online poker playing is really getting out of hand."
"The dog's tail is caught in the door."

Make sense? Okay. Another use for the apostrophe is a contraction of "[noun] is." For instance, you could say:

"Dad is addicted to online poker."
OR
"Dad's addicted to online poker."

The two sentences mean the same thing.

When should you ABSOLUTELY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NEVER, EVER, EVER USE AN APOSTROPHE?

When the noun is already possessive. "His," "hers," "yours," "mine," "ours," et cetera. These are fine on their own. Don't seek to change them, baby.

"His hand is awful for this game."
"This hand is yours!"

Please, please don't make up some word like "your's" or "his's" whatever you're tempted to do.

Now for the tricky "your" vs. "you're." Actually, I lied, it's not that tricky.

"Your" is used to designate something that is yours.

"I love your car."

"You're" is a contraction of "you" and "are."

"You're such a cad."

They have very different meanings. If you find yourself tempted to use "you're," ask yourself if you are attempting to say "you are." If you find yourself tempted to use "your," as if you mean to designate a thing that belongs to someone. Let me simplify it further.

"I love your THE car THAT BELONGS TO YOU."
"You're You are such a cad."

Does that make the meanings more clear? Good.

Finally, putting apostrophes after decades (the 2000's), letters (CD's), and anything else that is NEITHER a possessive NOR a contraction of "[noun] is" is unnecessary, and probably wrong.

Lose the Loose

"Loose" is an adjective, and I think we all know what it means. For instance, in gambling,

"These slots are loose."

"To lose" is a verb meaning...you can't find something. Please don't confuse these two, it's just silly.

Postscript

I hope these grammar hints have been helpful. In conclusion, free online poker.