Re: Its and It's/ Affect and Effect

[Wayne Douglass <wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM>]

At 01:01 PM 9/22/97 -0400, Beth Agnew wrote:
>TRIAD Services asked:
>
>Why do so many people have problems with its and it's?
>
>It's because we have seen them confused so many times in print that the
>wrong one is starting to look correct. It's the "Sleeper Effect" -- for
>some reason the brain likes to hold onto misinformation given by an
>unimportant source, making it seem accurate and authoritative when recalled
>from memory. I absolutely *know* the difference between the possessive and
>the contraction, and when to use either, but I find myself unconsciously
>typing the wrong one from time to time.  Annoys me like silly, sometimes.
>
On a similar note, somebody once asked me for a rule of thumb regarding the
proper use of affect v. effect *as a verb.* Given the kind of writing he was
doing, I said, "Use affect and you'll be right 99% of the time."

--Wayne
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Wayne Douglass        phone: 408-542-2139
Verity, Inc.            FAX: 408-542-2040
894 Ross Road        mailto:wayned -at- verity -dot- com
Sunnyvale, CA 94089    http://www.verity.com
    "Connecting People With Information"
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