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English is weird
Redball:
affect as both noun and verb
effect as both noun and verb
His outburst had a longlasting effect on her ability to show affect. Therapy effected some improvement, but also affected her relationships with some of her closest friends.
I think I've got it right.
from my built-in Oxford dictionary:
affect as verb: have an effect on, make a difference, also, to pretend to feel an emotion
affect as noun: emotion or desire, mostly used in psychology
effect as verb: to bring about or cause something to happen
effect as noun: change that is a result or consequence of an action or other cause
jwhouk:
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 19 May 2012, 01:49 ---How many sounds does "ough" represent for you?
<snip>
and I'm aware of at least one other archaic word:
h-ough (pronounced, and now usually spelt, hock)
--- End quote ---
And there's the explanation why my name gets mispronounced constantly.
Akima:
The inability of English to handle negative questions logically and unambiguously.
Q: "You're not from around here, are you?"
A1 "No." <--- In normal usage, this means "I am not from around here", but logically it means the opposite.
A2 "Yes." <--- "Yes (I am not from around here)" but people would normally think you meant: "No, I am from around here".
Q1: "Did you bring the money?"
Q2: "Didn't you bring the money?"
If you did bring the money, in normal usage your answer to both questions would be "yes". If you did not bring the money your answer would normally be "no" to both questions.
Papersatan:
I did a whole day on yes and no questions with the woman I tutored in English. Explaining the shades of meaning between the different forms and how to quickly carry on a conversation without getting lost in the maze of positives and negatives. My advice was to ignore all the nonsense words and true false the core of the question:
Are you cold?
You're cold aren't you?
Aren't you cold?
You're not cold, are you?
You cold.
But for good measure I also told her to answer in a sentence. "Yes, I am." Because then there is no confusion which she meant.
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Redball on 19 May 2012, 05:03 ---affect as noun: emotion or desire, mostly used in psychology
--- End quote ---
Also in music, especially when discussing the baroque for some reason.
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