Tuesday, March 11, 2008

It's quite effective

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,

How do you cure the common cold?

You don't. There is no cure for common cold. You might have come upon medications that claim to cure the common cold but meh, I don't think such medications would really have any effect on curing the cold. It might affect your wallet though. You might as well wait for your antibody to kick off and cure yourself.

Effect - Dictionary.com: Noun: a result or consequence
abd's definition: This is the noun to describe a result of an action

affect - Dictionary.com: Verb: to act on; produce an effect or change in
abd's definition: this is the word that you use when an effect is taking place. Affect is the verb form of effect.

So, let's take a look at this example:

How do you think the new government will affect our lives?
I don't think it will have any effect on me. I'm just being ignorant.

Compare:

How do you think the new government will affect our lives?
I don't think it would affect me in anyway. I'm just being ignorant.

From these 2 answers to the same question, we could see that effect and affect are used to say the same thing but they are presented in two different styles. As to which one is better? Being an avid but incapable learner of the English language myself I think it's up to you to decide. Your writing, your style.

Allah knows best.

ps: Affection is a noun which has quite a different meaning from affect and effect. Affection shall be covered in the next entry which will be published hopefully sooner than later.

2 comments:

pizah_hafizah said...

do you know why there is no effective medication for common cold? coz it is cause by viral, and definitely antibiotics has NO effect whatsoever towards the virals...so, if your doctor prescribed you medication for common cold...they just want to get the money out of your pocket!

azzahra said...

thankyou for this post!

Disclaimer: I am neither an English native speaker nor a qualified English teacher.