> What's the difference between "then" and "than"? This has been bugging me for quite some time, and seeing as how most of you seem to be grammatical experts of one degree or another, would anyone mind filling me in?
>
> M"grammatically ignorant, as you can probably tell from the fact that I'm not putting a period at the end of this sentence"el

My esteemed fellow Rinky-dinks have already cut through the haze surrounding "then vs. than", but as long as we're on the subject, let's clear up another commonly-confused word pair, which I've run into several times lately: the infamous "affect vs. effect"!

Let's look at the following sentence as an example:

"Changing the bus speed settings of your computer probably won't effect its performance."

This is obviously incorrect, not only because changing those bus speed settings actually *will* result in a measurable performance difference, but also because I used "effect" the wrong way. :-)

"Effect" is most often used as a noun, as in, "I am now feeling the effects of the spicy meatball sub I ate at two o'clock this morning." "Affect", on the other hand, is most often used as a verb, as in, "Industrial pollution negatively affects the earth's atmosphere."

Confusingly, however, "effect" can also be a verb, and "affect" can also be a noun. "Effect" as a verb means roughly "to bring about", or "accomplish". You can "effect change in society," or "effect a reversal in policy." "Affect" isn't used much as a noun except in psychology, where it refers to a person's emotions.

A good rule of thumb for most uses might be that you can either "affect" something or "have an effect on it". You usually won't "effect" something, except for the example of "effecting change", which is a fairly common expression.

Don't even get me started on "its" versus "it's", which even people who write or edit for a living can't seem to get straight nowadays. If I start on that topic, I'm liable to start foaming at the mouth and calling upon the patron saints of grammar to inflict plagues upon various and sundry offenders. :-)

Iss "...but we could always solve the problem by changing both words to "iss" "achar