this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Change is to alter something, not to create/produce something.
I wrote it as wanting to affect how Congress does things, to change what Congress does, to have an impact on Congress, which is what lobbying does.
I stand by my usage of the word affect, over effect.
It's a transitive verb. "Affect change" places "change" as the object. You're not saying you're altering the political situation or you're altering Congress; You're saying the change is already happening, and you're merely slightly altering its direction. "Effect change" means "Make a change", which is what you're trying to say. "Affect change" means "change the change", which is probably nonsensical in most cases you'd use it.
Also, "effect change" specifically is a standard idiom. "Effect change" shows up in the English language around 8X more commonly than "affect change" between 1800 and 2000, because "affect change" is a semantically incorrect misspelling of "effect change". [1] "Effect a change" is also either explicitly defined in or given as an example usage in many major dictionaries, while the same isn't true of "affect change", because, again "affect change" is a generally incorrect usage that doesn't actually make sense or mean anything outside of potentially very specific scenarios that don't apply here. [2]
1: Google Books Ngram Viewer.
2: Defined in Collins. Used in example sentences by: Cambridge, Webster, American Heritage
I mean. Feel free to, I guess?
If I was saying that the change already happened I would have said 'affectED' past tense, which I did not.
I'm advocating for something to cause change, I'm not saying that change is already in the middle of happening or has happened.
I stand by my usage of the word affect, over effect.
Oh my god. You're using "change" as an object noun after a transitive verb which itself has no connotation or denotation of creation or causation. That implicitly means you're saying that the thing it's referring to must already exist.
Yes! That is what "effect" means.
Yes you are! "Affect (v.)" already means "change (v.)". "Affect (v.) change (n.)" means "change (v.) the change (n.)". That implies that the "change (n.)" must already exist.
It's like if I said "This salt will really affect my spaghetti". That implicitly says/presumes that "my spaghetti" already exists, or else it wouldn't be able to be affected.
🙄
FFS, I explained the grammatical reasoning, and linked to historical usage data, and linked to four different dictionaries to back that up.
You know what, fuck it. I only mentioned "effect" vs. "affect" because I thought that was somewhat interesting and more obscure rather than annoying to point out, but if you're going to just be obtuse about it I may as well have some fun and point out the various other grammatical and semantic mistakes too…
"The Congress app" should not have a definite article because the app you linked to is, per the app ID, developer info, and first line of its description, unofficial and unaffiliated with the U.S. Congress. "Representative" should be plural, though that's probably just a typo. The second "despite" should have a conjunction such as "and" immediately before it. "Want" should be conjugated as "wants" after "citizenry", because the noun it applies to in this case is the singular "majority". "Affect" should be "effect", because "affect change" isn't a thing and is actually nonsense. The clause right after that, beginning with "that's what the corporations", is a run-on sentence and should probably be fixed with a conjunction denoting causality or reasoning. The clause after "involved" is also a run-on sentence, and should probably either be its own declarative statement or be semicolon-delimited. The third "to" on the second sentence of your next reply needs a listing conjunction right before it. And in your latest reply, the clause after "cause change" is also a run-on sentence and should probably be delimited by either a full stop or a semicolon instead of a comma.
Now I suppose I'll wait for you to explain why you "stand by" these other plainly incorrect (and, frankly, inconsequential) errors as well.
It's funny how you started out pretending to champion political change, and to be against frivolously "commenting about it on an Internet forum". … I should know better.
I'm not being obtuse, I'm just disagreeing with your interpretation of the words. I feel you're ignoring the temporal aspect of when each word should be used, per how I learned to use those words in school.
Honestly not trying to upset you, you're just telling me something different that I've learned my whole life about. And you spewing out ChatGPT levels of text doesn't convince me, it just makes me feel like you're trying to obscure and be intellectually dishonest about the conversation.
Honestly, why?
Are you so offended with someone who would disagree with you that you have to go to such extreme measures in a public forum in an attempt to shame them?
Would you act this way with somebody at a party who disagreed with you on something?
Does your life have so little meaning to it that this is the only way you could gain satisfaction out of it?
Honestly not meaning this as a snarky comeback, but, 'touch grass', sincerely. It's just voice-to-text dictation of opinions, not written prose in the style of the great writers.
And yes, I still stand by how I'm using the word affect, versus effect. Oh wait, sorry: I still stand by how I used the word affect, versus effect.
Bruh. I offered a polite correction on an ultimately inconsequential grammatical error you made. You're the one who doubled down on the error, and then continued doubling down while ignoring everything I said except for specific sentences which you clearly didn't understand.
"Spewing out ChatGPT levels of text"? WTF is that even supposed to mean? I just quickly explained the grammar at first. Then, when you didn't get that, I elaborated on the reasoning for it, and linked to like, five different independent sources, instead of just making blanket assertions. You didn't understand, so I explained— Jeez, but that's the real issue, isn't it? You don't seem to like that very much.
This is so stupid. Does it even matter? Do you do anything other than moralize down at Internet strangers about petty and incorrect semantics while repeating yourself?