• jarfil@lemmy.world
    4·
    1 year ago

    nuances of when to use what terms despite each term being roughly equivalent (such as: what is the difference is between “affect” and “effect”)

    Maybe it’s an effect of me having English as a 3rd language, but… what nuance? They’re two different words.

    I find most people are almost unnecessarily terse, leaving out important context that they think is obvious and assume that everyone who receives their message will make the same observation

    I shouldn’t need to “read between the lines” to understand what you want me to do.

    I’ve been told that’s an aspect of being on the autistic spectrum, that “normal people” will have no trouble picking up on the missing context.

    Always sounded to me like an excuse for being sloppy, like maybe the lazies are lowering the “autism” bar too low… but who am I to judge anyone, but a simple chap on the spectrum.

    • MystikIncarnateEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I can usually (about 98% of the time) pick up on the assumed context. I recognise that not everyone does, so I try not to make the assumption. For me that goes back to the curse of knowledge problem more than anything. It makes sense to me because I know the context and underlying information about the matter. I try not to make an assumption that everyone will know that when reading my notes/emails/documentation/etc.

      Native English speakers use affect and effect fairly interchangeably, so most don’t know the difference because they haven’t opened dictionary.com in a decade or more.