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The Merciless Grammarian Fall 2006 / Columns

The Merciless Grammarian spews his wrath on nasty problems of grammar, mechanics, and style.

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Drawing by Nathan Baran Most Merciless, I find that all this harping on grammar has a terrible affect on me. I end up stressing about all this stuff I don’t really know much about, and as a result my writing becomes less affective.

Anxiously yours, Mahonri Finneas Two issues here, Mahonri, one fundamental to the fearsome beastie that is grammar, the other more a sign of your own befuddled state. Heavy lies the mantle on the shoulders of those called to enforce the strictures of grammatical usage. I am reminded–as no doubt are you–of Ælfric of Eynsham, the first writer of a grammar book in English.

Around the year 1000, Ælfric penned a dialogue for little monks-in-training to teach what we might call LSL (Latin as a Second Language). In the dialogue, the teacher first asks, “Are you willing to be beaten for the sake of learning?”

The monklets dutifully respond, “Yes, we would rather be beaten than not know. But we know you are merciful and will not beat us needlessly.” Are our attitudes toward grammar any different today? The consequences may not be as, shall we say, corporal, but the feelings are the same: someone’s got a stick.

Not that I in any way advocate sparing the rod to smite the infractor, which brings me to your own transgression. Unless you are versed in psychology or the performance of ancient music, your use of affect is misguided. Gather

around while Uncle Merciless tells a story about words.

In common usage, the noun effect means “a result” or “something produced”; the verb affect means “to influence,” “to have an effect on.” In the adjective realm, if something does a good job, it is effective. If we go back to Latin, whence these words come, effect is the progeny of efficere,, “to make [something] out [of something].” Affect is the whelp of afficere, “to do [something] to [something].” The trip into English and across six hundred years has turned the vowels in these words to mush. As a result, we pronounce them both “uhfect,” and choosing a vowel can be difficult when Vanna isn’t there to spin the letters for you.

Now, that doesn’t mean that affect can’t be used as a noun and effect is forever banished from verbdom. Return to the Latin for a sense of what these mean.

Affect is a term now used mostly among those who probe the mind and perform the music of the baroque (not necessarily the same group of people).

It means “the outward expression of emotion”–or, to get etymological on it, as the kids say, “signs of being emotionally acted upon.” That which brings out or draws on the emotions is therefore affective, as in sermons on the wrath to come. True to its roots, the verb effect means “to bring about”: “The elixir seemed to effect signs of life in the cadaver.”

I sincerely hope that has taken a buzz saw to your orthographical log jam. As for your larger concern, don’t worry. It’s nothing that a fundamental culture shift won’t cure.

Reigning in state, The Merciless One ‹ Southeastern Writing Center Association Awards

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Spring 2006 (Volume 3 Issue 2) - Beyond the Humanities ›