A Word, Please: Even people diligent about use of ‘affect,’ ‘effect’ get this wrong

A recent Google search for the phrase “affect positive change” turned up about 101,000 hits. Here’s one near the top of the list, a December 2014 story by Monica Middleton on the Guardian website: “Social investment: a powerful tool to affect positive change.”

Here’s an article published in January on LinkedIn and written by Johanne Bouchard: “7 Questions You Must Ask to Affect Positive Change in the Board Room.”

And this is from a 2013 piece by Forbes blogger Ron Conway: “It is important that we understand our responsibility to affect positive change in our communities.”

You could say this is good news. Lots of people, organizations and publications are talking about how to make the world a better place. But the good news is dampened by the spelling problem.

The phrase “to affect change” is almost always an error — a particularly tragic kind. Unlike the mistakes made by people who just don’t care about language, the error “to affect change” is usually committed by people who’ve made an effort to use “affect” and “effect” right. But they still get it wrong.

The basic difference between the words is that “affect” is a verb and “effect” is a noun. If you’re worried that something could negatively affect your credit rating, if you want to say that alcohol can affect a person’s motor skills, if you worry that lack of sleep could affect your job performance — all those sentences call for “affect,” a verb.

“Effect” is similar in meaning, but this is the one you want when the job calls for a noun. What is the effect of Fed policy on interest rates? We’ve seen firsthand the effects of war. That medication has some dangerous side effects.

It’s all about the word’s function in the sentence. That is, if caffeine affects your job performance, you could also say it has an effect on your job performance. See how “affect” is an action and “effect” is a thing?

That’s the basic difference, which many people know. But it’s an oversimplification — one that can lead to errors — because there’s another “effect” that isn’t a noun. It’s a verb.

The verb “effect” is not a synonym of “affect.” It has a specific meaning. Here’s what you’ll find in Merriam-Webster’s definition of “effect,” well below all the parts about the noun: “transitive verb. to cause to come into being; to bring about often by surmounting obstacles ... to put into operation.”

So when you bring about positive change, you effect it. If you instead use “affect,” it’s almost like you’re talking about changing change itself, which could mean to undo the very positive changes you’re trying to bring about. That’s what makes “affect positive change” such an unfortunate error.

The verb “affect” can also do a switcheroo, taking the job of a noun. But that’s rare. The noun form of “affect” means, in Merriam-Webster’s words, “a set of observable manifestations of a subjectively experienced emotion.”

For example, “patients showed perfectly normal reactions and affects.” But most people outside of the mental health field never have to worry about the rare noun “affect.”

If you didn’t know the verb “effect,” you may at this moment be worrying that you too have made the mistake of writing “affect positive change.” If you did, don’t feel bad. The Guardian made that mistake, and it has a Pulitzer. But if you want to use the words right, never affect positive change. Only effect it.

JUNE CASAGRANDE is author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at [email protected].