WNW: Reader Peeves

More Word Nerd Wednesday fun from reader comments and e-mails. On tap today:

Alyson of New England Living mentioned a constantly confused word pair:

Affect/Effect
One of these words in a verb, and the other is (almost always) a noun. In a handful of cases it's a verb, but usually in formal situations, so probably not when you're writing a blog or a novel.

AFFECT is a verb. In other words, it implies an ACTION.

Use that as your mnemonic device: they both begin with A: AFFECT mean ACTION.

Examples:

How did reading that book affect you?

His death affected her for the rest of her life.

We anticipate the downturn of the economy to affect overall sales.

On the other hand, EFFECT is a noun.

Think of it as the result of the action version. First something gets AFFECTED, and the result is an EFFECT.

The two words even happen in alphabetical order (another way to remember which is which.)

Examples:

That book had a powerful effect on me; I cried.

His death had a huge effect: she spiraled into depression.

The effect of the downturn in the economy has meant lower overall sales.

Make sense? (I hope?)

L.T. Elliot of Lexicon Luvr brought up two issues:

First: grey vs. gray

Which is correct? That depends on where you live and/or where your publisher is located. In the UK, Canada, and some other locations, GREY would be correct. In the U.S. use GRAY.

If you're lucky enough to have a book with multiple foreign markets, expect to see differences like this. I got a kick out of reading Dan Wells's I Am Not a Serial Killer in the UK version. The book takes places in the U.S. but all the punctuation, spelling, etc. is with UK standards.

Lexicon Luvr's other topic: than vs then

Oooh, an error I see ALL THE TIME. (Also, one I sometimes make accidentally, even though I know which is which. One reason writers need to PROOF their work. Spell check ain't catching this one.)

THAN compares two things:

Dan is taller than his father.

Sammie is shorter than most of her friends.

I love chocolate more than you do.

THEN, on the other hand, refers to a sequence:

Dan came home from school then did his homework.

Sammie played the violin, clarinet, and then settled on the flute.

I ate chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, then two chocolate donuts.

From Lucy of An Ordinary Mom:

councilor/counselor
These are both people, but they have very different definitions. Take the "OR" off the end, and you can figure out what the meaning is for each.

A COUNSELOR is one who (take off the OR) COUNSELS, such as a therapist.

A COUNCILOR, on the other hand, is a person who (wait for it . . . take of the OR . . .) is part of a COUNCIL.

SO:

Bob went to see a counselor to help him through a bout of depression.

Harry was elected to be a councilor in the nation's governing council.

And a personal peeve . . .

Many grammatical errors are made when listeners think they're hearing one thing, but in fact are hearing something else. (One common example: Yesterday I laid down. People assume there are TWO Ds, so they use the wrong form. There is only ONE D: Yesterday I lay down.)

My peeve of the day:

Contractions of should have, would have, or could have should be:

should've, would've, could've

But sometimes people hear that wrong and end up writing down what they think they're hearing. And it comes out like this:

should of

could of

would of

If they took five seconds to think through the meaning, they'd realize that OF makes no sense in this context. But that's the word they hear, and they forget it's a contraction, so that's what they write.

[TWITCH]