I’m proofreading a document and have come across something that has me pounding my head against the desk. Perhaps I have simply had too little coffee…
The issue comes up a few times. The document discusses the “CNN Effect” - all well and good. However when discussing its sphere of influence, the writer uses “affect”. For example:
“… agency, affect, and scope.” To my mind, this should be “effect”; the author later expands on this by saying “affect” refers to the areas that are affected.
Further on, the author then describes specifically “the area of affect”, again to refer to the sphere of influence of the CNN effect. And again, to my mind, it should be “area of effect”.
I don’t know why this is baffling me so much - possibly because this book has been extensively edited by several people before me, including the publisher, and is now in the proofs stage. I guess I’m having a hard time accepting that I’m the first person to pick up on this repeated error.
Thanks - after spending more of the morning than I care to admit contemplating this, I’ve decided I’ll submit it as a correction. If he has a compelling argument as to why his way is correct, at least I’ll have learned something.
Agree with the latter although I’d probably reverse the order, but “affectation” has a more specific meaning which generally refers to a pretentiously adopted habit/item, e.g. “Dave’s pipe is a ridiculous affectation.” Unless the author is referring to a field of poseurs, I think the former would give the wrong impression.
You should query it – but affect can also be a noun, most often used in psychology – link – so it’s not impossible that that’s what the author intended.
I had a feeling that someone would come along and throw all my theories out the window. Will gladly wait for that citation - I’m more curious than anything else at this point.
[preview] I see twickster beat me to it. The wiki link is good.
“Affect” here pretty much means “feeling, at least as displayed”. It’s psychology jargon. The OED (can’t link directly) says
So you might hear people say “What’s the effect on affect?”“Is affect affected?” “Can we affect affect?” “Can we effect affect [sinister]?”
It’s a confusing use. I only became aware of it when I ran into the term “affective sentients” which seems to mean “beings that we can tell feel things”.
Ah, well, I’m pretty sure that the psychology connotation isn’t the usage the author is getting at. He’s not referring to affected behaviors in any way or even anything relating to human, he’s talking about the scope of things being affected by a phenomenon. If I were to reword the sentence, it would be “the sphere of influence [of the phenomenon]”. Or I’d use impact. Or, of course, effect.
I am aware of the meaning of “affect” as a noun, I just wanted to be doubly sure that in this context, my interpretation that “affect” is incorrect is… well, correct. Again, my main source of confusion stems from the fact that this book has been proofread several times, and aside from these few instances – where the author seems quite intentionally to be using “affect” over “effect” – the words are used appropriately.
So, unless anyone can tell me an instance where “affect” (noun) can equal impact or influence, I’m going to have to go with my gut.
I say again: The correct noun here is “effect.” “Affect” (emotion) makes no sense in the context. This is an error that my students make all of the time.
