Editor's Corner

Good morning, friends. Almost every year, we discuss the words affect vs. effect. Here are just a few blasts from the past:

• Editor’s Corner: Affect, Effect, and Aflac
• Editor’s Corner: Affect and Effect Annual Visitation
• Editor’s Corner: Affect and Effect, Revisited
• Editor’s Corner: Those Problem Children – Affect and Effect
• Nifty Nuggets: Affect vs. Effect

But today, I’m going to borrow shamelessly from (and edit) the article at Dictionary.com, about the extensions of these terms: affective and effective.

Quick summary

The adjective effective is commonly used, while the adjective affective is much less commonly used. Effective has several different meanings but is most often used to mean “producing the desired result” or “being in operation.” The word affective means “emotional” or “causing feeling or emotion.”

Here are some definitions and examples:

affective vs. effective

Of the two words, effective is far more commonly used and is very likely to be the word that you’re looking for. Effective has several different meanings. It can mean “producing the desired result,” “being in operation,” “impressive,” or “ready for service.”

The following sentences show examples of these different senses:

• Adopting cats is an effective way to get rid of mice.
• The new dress code policy is effective immediately.
• The audience was transfixed by the effective painting.
• The regiment consists of 10,000 effective soldiers.

By contrast, affective is a rarely used word. It means “relating to emotions” or “causing emotion” and is a synonym of the word emotional. Affective is most likely to be encountered in the contexts of psychology or psychiatry, such as in the name of seasonal affective disorder.

For example:

• The study showed that even older children tend to form strong affective attachments with their pets.
• Beth really liked studying affective disorders in her psychology classes.

The confusion between the commonly used effective and the rarely used affective may be related to the common confusion between the words effect and affect. The word effect is most often used as a noun to mean “consequence,” as in They studied the effects of climate change on bird migration. Meanwhile, the word affect is most often used as a verb to mean “to influence; to produce a change in,” as in The rising gas prices affected many people beyond car owners.

And some additional examples:

· I tried to use a scarecrow to protect my corn from hungry birds, but it wasn’t effective.

· The president instituted new hiring practices that will be effective starting next month.

· This ant spray must be pretty effective, because I haven’t seen a single ant in months.

· The research team was studying a new affective disorder that causes severe depression in teenagers.

I hope this change to the adjectival version of these words is as welcome as our past articles!

Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Technical Publications

Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com

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