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Comment by xtracto | Hacker News Reader

Hey, English is not my first language. Is "effected" here the right word to use or would "affected" be the correct term? I see English speaking people use these two interchangeably so much online that I am starting to doubt what I learned in my English courses.

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Native English speakers mostly learned English by sound alone, so many such speakers regularly mix up words which sound very similar, like it’s/its, effected/affected, site/sight, etc. Non-native speakers have instead frequently learned by mostly reading, and may therefore instead be lacking in correct pronunciation, but have no problem in distinguishing “it’s” and “its”, for example.

Affected would have been more correct.

"Affected means that something was influenced or changed (e.g. the lyrics affected him).

Effected means that something was brought about or facilitated (e.g. she effected the proposed changes)."

It's definitely a subtle change, and, similarly, affect and effect tend to be mixed up as well

- from https://prowritingaid.com/affected-vs-effected#:~:text=To%20....

I will also recommend the book Uncovering The Logic of English, which is primarily aimed at native (American) English speakers but has several nods to English-as-a-second-language lessons.

Cheers! Signed, an American who was corrected by his father quite often and now has an ear for these things.

"Affected" is correct. Fortunately most of the time you can use the wrong word and still be understood.

Even with English as my first language, and as a life-long pedant, I still have to stop and think each time I use one or the other.

"Affected" is the correct term here. People do use those wrong all the time. Honestly it's not always that they don't know which one (well ok it probably is, but doesn't have to be), but I find typing comments online my brain interchanges some things like that even though I know which one is correct.

“affected” should have been used. It is a common mistake to confuse the two.

It should be “affected”

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