In environmental psychology there is a specific cumulative effect which has been referred to in literature as:
- synergetic effect
E.g.: Potential synergetic effects between local road traffic noise and wind turbine noise cannot be excluded based on the current experiment. [from: T. Van Renterghem et al. / Science of the Total Environment 456 -457 (2013) 333-345]
and
- synergistic effect
E.g.: The future studies should focus on potential synergistic effect of road traffic noise and
air pollution on hypertension and myocardial infarction. [from: WHO, Burden of disease from environmental noise: Practical guidance, 2010]
Between these two usages, there is no difference in the meaning. In French we would say "l'effet de synergie" directly translated: "the synergy effect".
Now, I just would like to express that this effect is present in my current data set:
The synergetic/synergistic/synergy effect has been observed in the current data set.
Which usage do you think is correct from a grammatical point of view?
Thank you for your help!
Best Answer
An Ngram chart for "the synergetic effects" (blue line) versus "the synergistic effects" (red line) versus "the synergy effects" (green line) for the period 1940–2005 shows a very substantial preference in the publications included in the Google Books database for the second option, with the first and third options roughly equal to each other in popularity:
A seond Ngram chart for the singular version of each phrase—"the synergetic effect" (blue line) versus "the synergistic effect" (red line) versus "the synergy effect" (green line)—over the same period yields fairly similar results, albeit on a somewhat larger scale:
The upshot is that most writers referring in compact form to the effects (or effect) of synergy prefer the wording "the synergistic effect(s)," and those who don't are about evenly divided between "the synergetic effect(s) and "the synergy effect(s)."