h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I hope that your problems are not only fewer but are also not so significant, thus being lesser problems making your circumstances less problematical.

See? You get it! Is it really that complicated? I really wish I had to deal with that less times a day (sic).

-Strider

In British English you would more likely say "We won't have so many problems now".

However, I have always tried to explain that to people with mashed potatoes and chips. You can count one, but you can't count the other.

Germans have terrible trouble with it in English and vice versa. Although each expression has its own word in each language.

"Viel" = "much" and
"Viele" = "many"

You learn it just like you learn that Apple is Apfel and Bread is Brot. Then there's no need for a problem. People often confuse themselves unnecessarily.

However, I always bear in mind that there are things which are obvious to some people in their lines of work or interest about which I have no idea. Grammar and language happens to be my line of interest. I appear just as ignorant to them when I try and talk about aeroplanes or feng shui, about which I have no idea and would put my foot in it and be frantically embarrassing if I did say anything. So I leave people who can't remember or don't know to their ignorance, and hope they accept mine (which they probably won't).

The affect/effect problem is quite easy to figure out really. I have just acquired Bill Bryson's "Troublesome Words", which explains lots of similar things. He gets over-pedantic on some matters, to my mind, but on others, I am entirely in agreement.

The next posting is about those very two words, and how he explains them. I am posting it separately because no doubt the moderators will take it away as soon as they've digested their Christmas pudding, as it is lifted wholesale from the book.

AFFECT/EFFECT. From "Troublesome Words" by Bill Bryson

[Copyright material removed by moderator]

Now, can someone tell me an English word for "To have a negative effect on" - there is a very useful German word which says just that, but I've never found an English equivalent ... *reaches for dictionary* .. no. No help from dictionary, it beats about the bush with things like "to prejudice" "to impair"... not quite the same.

Sully!

~jwf~

Nice one. Wasn't in that dictionary. I'd better throw it away. Sullies my bookshelves it does.

Oh, you've done it now.

"To have a negative effect on" always strikes me as a piece of nonsense in the way it is used. To my mental processes, it suggests "no change": the effect is negative i.e. it negates effect, nothing changes.
I put it to you, members of the jury that what is intended is "to have an adverse effect on ".

I rest my case.

Why do Lawyers Rest their Cases - do they get Tired?

No, if *they* got tired they would rest themselves. Their briefcases must get tired.

I hope that you will all join me in a toast to absent friends.
May they all have a happy Christmas.
I carry in my thoughts, particularly, Kaeori and Nikki-D, and trust that they will return soon and safely to us.

To absent friends. <--That's not a very good toasting smiley, is it? Oh well.

Ah, Strider,

Resourceful and reliable as ever

Thank you.

Any time.

To go back to the affect/effect thing try this.

Synonyms for each word should remind you of their use;

affect, influence, impress, touch, move, strike

effect, consequence, result, outcome, upshot, sequel


alji

Nice try Aljiis, and thanks ...but I still don't quite get it.

Yous say:
>affect, influence, impress, touch, move, strike<
and:
>effect, consequence, result, outcome, upshot, sequel<

Am I to gather that affect is a verb and effect is a noun? Surely it isn't that simple?

This a/e-ffect thing really is the one oddity of my Mother tongue that I can't get my head around. As I said earlier, the result is I take on the unreasonable attitude that it doesn't matter. I fall guilty to the sins of the young, the lazy and the illiterate and pretend it's not that important, that I can fake my way thru it, that anyone who is critical of my usage is a silly old pedant. But I know better and this may be the only opportunity I'll ever have to finally get it right. Perhaps some examples...

"How will losing your credit cards affect your dinner plans?"
"Losing your credit cards affected your dinner plans!"
"What was the effect of losing your credit cards?"
"The loss of credit cards had the effect of spoiling dinner plans."

So is the rule: If you can put 'the' in front of it, it's a noun spelled with an 'e', and if it's the verb, it's 'a'.
Is it really that simple?

peace, and joy
~jwf

In the Bryson quote that was - as I anticipated - moderated away into oblivion, he points out that both effect and affect can be a verb or a noun.

Otherwise, the examples you give are absolutely correct, jwf, and you were obviously kidding that you don't know the difference. The two uses you quote are the most common, but there is the word "effect" as a verb - to effect an escape, a transaction. "Affect" as a verb is far less common, and has something to do with affectation, apparently, but I have no idea without looking it up what it precisely means.

Thanks Plaguesville, for re-introducing the word "adverse" to my vocabulary. Shame there isn't just a simple word like "to adversify".

Happy Christmas everyone.



and I hope we soon hear from Nikki and Kaeori again. I tried to find Nikki in the online phone book (have surname and town) but no go. Does anyone remember which department she works for at the local Council - perhaps someone could try phoning at work.... although, what do you say to the switchboard - "we know each other from a web community?"....

The right effect must be used to produce the best affect. As I look out of my window the snow is falling and across the valley, I can see the gritters are out. The effect is pretty but it will affect how I drive.

Alji

Adversify sounds like a Bushism! Can you do the same with averse, having a feeling of opposition or distaste. Going back to Milkmen and home deliveries, they are common in most of Britain though less so in rural areas.

Alji

Going back to cats - moggies, I found a definition of mog;
to walk or move along gently, slowly, and steadily.
BTW to mog off is to move on, depart, or decamp.
The noun from mog is moggy so perhaps this is why the cat is a moggy.

Alji