Re:Funny (Score 0)

But you would understand both sentences if you saw them, correct? That's because of a nifty thing called context.If a person were to say effect instead of affect in a real-life conversation with you then I'm almost sure you would not notice the difference. The only reason it bothers you is because you've learned to make a distinction between the two when written down. Language is natural and is constantly changing. Written language, on the other hand, is artificial and formal writing evolves slowly, if at all, compared to spoken language. Look at Europe, for example, after Rome fell and the various Romance languages came about, everyone who wrote *still* wrote only in Latin even though their new Romance languages were vastly different. That'd be like writing in German and only German but you only speak English. That's similar in a way to how it still is today. The way we spell in English, for example, is archaic and does NOT come close to accurately representing the actual sounds we use now. You can read Shakespeare's work but if you went back in time to watch them perform it around the time it was written then I guarantee you you won't know what the hell they're saying. We do not write the way we speak and, throughout history, people who let "common" phrasings and words slip into their written language are been looked down upon. Standards are good, but they are only guidelines meant to be followed for the sake of intelligibility and uniformity and as such can be broken. Don't submit a resume written in Ebonics though, class distinctions still apply for written language.