Grammar Point: Miscellaneous Commas and Affect/Effect
Friday, March 1, 2013
Miscellaneous Uses of a Comma
- Use a comma to set off words of a direct address, and yes and no.
John, do you need some water now?
Yes, I will meet you at noon.
- Use a comma to separate a direct quote from the rest of the sentence.
Michael declared, “When you get to this stage in your life, the rest is history.”
Affect vs. Effect
- The majority of the time you use affect as a verb and effect as a noun.
Affect means "to influence," as in, "The arrows affected Aardvark," or "The rain affected Amy's hairdo." Affect can also mean, roughly, "to act in a way that you don't feel," as in, "She affected an air of superiority."
Effect has a lot of subtle meanings as a noun, but to me the meaning "a result" seems to be at the core of all the definitions. For example, you can say, "The effect was eye-popping," or "The sound effects were amazing," or "The rain had no effect on Amy's hairdo."
For this week, please write:
• two sentences using a name of direct address
• two sentences beginning with “yes” or “no”
• two sentences that use a direct quote
• two sentences that use affect
• two sentences that use effect
For further information on effect and affect, see Grammar Girl.