Fewer is More...Is That the Write Affect?

Oh how I loved this week’s assignment! There are so many words that we use every day and have no idea that we are using them incorrectly. One example in particular that I had a hard time remembering for the longest time was the use of “less” and “fewer.” At first glance it can be extremely confusing to remember which word to use in a sentence. Most of the time you can read the sentence out loud and the word that sounds right is the correct word. One thing I use to remember the correct word is to remember that “less” is referring to a quantity amount that cannot be counted individually, and “fewer” is a numerical amount that can be counted. 

For example, you can have less sugar in your cookies and fewer cookies on the plate. You can count the number of cookies you have, but you can’t count how much sugar you have in a batch. 

Another really tricky group of words I have trouble remembering is “effect” and “affect.” This is probably one of the most difficult word pairs to remember. I think the easiest way to remember this pair is to think that “effect” can be used as a verb or a noun and “affect” can only be used as a verb. “Effect” is a change in a result or to cause something to happen, while “affect” is to make a difference to or touch feelings of. 

For example, you can be affected by the effect of the earthquake on the city. You feel a certain way due to the cause of the earthquake on the city.

Hopefully that will help you guys extinguish the difference between these word groups.

 

This is an interesting punctuation mistake that I didn't even notice for a long time. "Why pay more?" There should definitely be a question mark at the end of that sentence. I pass this ad everyday on my way to work and didn't notice it until my mom pointed it out!