[ExI] Captchas

Will Steinberg steinberg.will at gmail.com
Sun Aug 14 17:35:22 UTC 2011


It is very easy John.   Affect is the verb, and effect is the noun, around a
central idea of causal impact.  Affect is the verb that means "to cause a
status in" and effect is the noun that means "a status that has been
caused."  I believe there may be a case for equating the two nouns "affect"
and "effect" (the former carrying more of a habitual mode while the latter
is more instance-specific) and the two verbs "affect" and "effect" (where
the difference is a sort of double-mirror through indirect/direct object as
well as active/passive voice.)  However, one of these pairs is a noun and
one is a verb.  They form a beautiful linguistic diptych/tetrad that you
have grossly underestimated the subtle power of.

On Aug 14, 2011 12:45 PM, "john clark" <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:

On Aug 13, 2011, at 8:00 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> " "affect" means to have an influence on or...
And that is exactly precisely what an effect does.


>
> " "affect" means have a *effect* on or make a difference to."
As opposed to "effect" which means NOT having an effect on or NOT making a
difference to. Or maybe not.


>
> "If that is still too hard to follow,"
It is, far far too hard. You seem passionate in insisting there is a
profound difference but I'll be damned if I see it.

>
> "try this: You can affect me by punching me in the snout (or by SHOUTING
BULLSHIT! on my screen)...
No doubt. And either of those things would bring about a change in you that
was the result of an action; and as you just admitted in your post the word
for something like that is "effect".


>
> "The effect is to make my nose bleed"
It's weird, I could have used those very same two examples myself to
illustrate that there is absolutely no difference between the two words
except, as I already mentioned, when "affect" is used to mean pretend or
phony. I guess those two words just effect our minds differently.

 John K Clark


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