Josh Evnin

Grammar by Google

Not much time to write, but I wanted to relay a situation that just occurred. I’m in the middle of proofreading a paper and wasn’t sure if I wanted to use the word ‘affect’ or ‘effect’. I’m generally not bad at grammar and spelling, but affect and effect generally always confuse me. I’m gonna send a whiny email to those guys who wrote the English language…what were they thinking?

Anyway, to the point. In order to see which word was right, I simply typed the important part of the sentence into Google (in double quotes, of course, otherwise the little words don’t get searched). Then, based on the number of pages that came up for each search I was able to logically discover which was the correct (a/e)ffect. Here’s the example I used:

85-169, looks like affect wins! Next time you have a grammatical or spelling quandary, check your options on Google. Trust the people in internet land…we’re smarter when we work together.

In

2 responses

  1. Brian H Avatar
    Brian H

    Grammar by democracy has its problems, but should usually work. I prefer Gurunet.com. Alt-click on any word brings up a definition, audio pronunciation button, and more. Great tool.

    e.g.:
    Affect versus Effect.
    Affect with an a is usually a verb; effect with an e is (usually) a noun. When you affect something, you have an effect on it. The usual adjective is effective.
    If the usuals leave you curious, here’s the rest of the story: affective as an adjective means “relating to or arousing an emotional reaction”; effect as a verb means “to bring about” or “to accomplish,” as in “to effect a change.”
    ~~~~~~~

    There’s a bit more. “Affect” as a noun means emotional response, usually visible response. Lack of affect, for example, means deadpan unresponsiveness. Like psychopaths.

  2. Suzanna Avatar
    Suzanna

    Or you could have done a Suzanna Search (that’s alliteration) because I possess all kinds of grammatical prowess, or do I? Ponder that for a second. I also like to refer to myself in the 3rd person. Bygones. And what is this… it ain’t Xanga.

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