I just got contacted by Giles Habibula who wanted to make me aware of a linguistic mistake I made. When I tried to reply I learned that his e-mail address isn’t working.
Maybe you can help me out so that I can understand this and don’t make this mistake in the future.
Here is the message I receive from Giles:
You, sir, are unaware of the difference between "effect" and "affect" which causes one to doubt your competence in other areas.
For a better understanding: this is on my video tutorial series How clothes effect breasts. You can find this tutorials by clicking here.
This following was the reply that I send and that was undeiverable. Maybe you can tell me the right way to use ‘effect’ and ‘affect’.
Dear Mr./Mrs. Habibula,
Thank you very much to bring this under my attention. As I mention on my about page I’m not a native English speaker. I never had lessons in it and are completely self taught.
According to the Collins COBUILD dictionary I got this definition of ‘effect’:
The effect of one thing on another (in this case clothes on breasts) is the change that the first thing causes to the second thing.
This is what the same dictionary says about the word ‘affect’:
If something affects a person or a thing, it influences them or cause them to change in some way.
As I assume that you are a native English speaker with much love for the right use of this language. You will understand that this two definitions above can be a little bit confusing.
I’m very grateful that you brought this to my attention as I asked my visitors on my about page to attend me on every linguistic flaw. I love to learn. So, thank you very much for explaining why I have chosen the wrong word. I really appreciate that.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
And of course I wish all my readers a wonderful weekend.
Let’s see…
Clothes affect breasts.
The effect clothes have on breasts.
Affect – verb. Effect – noun.
Hope that helps!
Thank you very much for this fast reply, Marianas!
Have a nice weekend :-)
Hello Mario,
Marinas gave you the right explanation!
Thank you and best wishes, Zuzanna
Gosh, it’s so great to learn.
So if somebody affects my day by making me laugh, this will have an effect on how I feel ;-)
Mario, if someone affects you in a positive way your drawing will look great!
But if not, the the effect of your drawing will make me cry…:)
This is a very good example, lol!
In the spirit of helping out, I would offer this alteration:
“I never had lessons in it and are completely self taught.” would read better as “I have never had lessons in it, and am completely self taught.”
This replaces ‘are’ with ‘am’, the only real problem with the sentence. The rest, adding the word ‘have’, and a comma, just make it work better.
Hope this helps. :)
Hello Adam,
Thank you very much for helping me improving my English skills!
Every little correction helps!
Have a nice weekend,
Mario
i think you’re english is great, mario! perhaps you can teach us french! i am terrible at french! i can understand it as spoken but have trouble speaking it properly