Affect of Effect?

It affected (influenced) Thomas’s mood.

Effect used as a verb means
cause (something) to happen; bring about:

Nature always effected a cure. Effect used as a verb is much less common than to affect.

Just bite the bullet and memorize each meaning.

The effect was to affect Thomas’s mood.

@gailcalled is right. You can remember it more easily by thinking of “affect” as the verb and “effect” as the noun. Although “effect” can be a verb, it’s less common and most of the mistakes are made (that I’ve noticed) by using “effect” where “affect” should be used.

Pleeeeeeeeeze… Newt’s somberness “affected” Thomas’ mood. It had a bad “effect” on him.

Agree with above. Also affect may be used as a noun, stress on first syllable, mainly a psychological term to describe how someone responds to social interaction, as in “having a flat affect.” But the phrase “cause and effect,” spelled with an e, demonstrates the usual noun.

Another lovely noun is affectless, the antonym of @gasman‘s example.

Here’s a good memory trick.

“So, most of the time, affect with an a is a verb and effect with an e is a noun; and now we can get to the mnemonics. First, the mnemonic involves a very easy noun to help you remember: aardvark. Yes, if you can remember aardvark—a very easy noun—you’ll always remember that affect with an a is a verb and effect with an e is a noun. Why? Because the first letters of ‘a very easy noun’ are the same first letters as ‘affect verb effect noun!’ That’s a very easy noun. Affect (with an a) verb effect (with an e) noun.

”‘But why Aardvark?’ you ask. Because there’s also an example to help you remember. It’s ‘The arrows affected Aardvark. The effect was eye-popping.’ It should be easy to remember that affect with an a goes with the a-words, arrow and aardvark, and that effect with an e goes with the e-word, eye-popping. If you can visualize the sentences, ‘The arrows affected the aardvark. The effect was eye-popping,’ it’s pretty easy to see that affect with an a is a verb and effect with an e is a noun.”

@bkcunningham I love that.

@BBawlight, I’ve been writing all my life, but I still occasionally have to stop and think about which one to use for what. A really easy way to remind myself of the rule is to Google “effect or affect.” That works for other pairs of words that I’m not sure of.

http://letmewritethat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/effect-affect.png

It seems that @gailcalled is channeling @Jeruba. Great answer Gail!

Affect or effect? The effect of knowing this doesn’t affect me much.

@Dr_Lawrence: What’s @Jeruba go to do with the price of tea in China?

EFFECT: something that inevitably follows an antecedent (as a cause or agent)
AFFECT: the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion