Hi Fifty,

Oh yes, English is difficult. It's rich and interesting (to me anyway) but it's a beast as well.

Yes to affect/effect. I thought it was in my list, but it was not.

British vs USA stuff: As I have aged I have tried very hard not to do the finger pointing and criticising of US English. I try to be critical across the board...!

In the 1980's I went to a conference run by Burroughs (when we had a mainframe at my work) and the speaker (from the US) said the word "instantiate". Some British guy interrupted and criticised him, saying it was not a word, only to be shot down with a dictionary reference. He looked a fool I thought, and vowed to myself never to do that!