Modern dictionaries are (mostly) descriptive, but I would rather they were proscriptive and absolutely forbid misusing words; even going as far as giving examples of why one use was right and another wrong. … … but… that said, I firmly believe that ‘affect’ should relate to ‘affectation’ and ‘effect’ should relate to ‘change’ and ‘result’, but I realize the world will say I’m wrong in phrases like, “the pandemic effected everyone.” When I put ‘affected’ in there, I read it as the pandemic suddenly anthropomorphizing itself to literally act like humanity – acting like it was ‘everyone’.