[tedunangst]

Fun nit: this is one of the times when effect is the correct word to use.

[Kaizyn]

Grammatically, ted is right on this one.

[derleth]

Depends on the variety of English. What you said is true for the prestige dialect, certainly.

[Kaizyn]

There ain't no such thing as a prestige dialect in English. In all of them, "affect change" is just plain wrong.

[derleth]

> There ain't no such thing as a prestige dialect in English.

I sincerely hope this is sarcasm.

> In all of them, "affect change" is just plain wrong.

Cite?

[Kaizyn]

Hello derleth:

"Effect. As noun, means result; as verb, means to bring about, accomplish (not to be confused with affect, which means "to influence")." http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk3.html

Affect vs. Effect: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sullivan/CommonWritingErrors.html#...

[derleth]

Those sources don't define correctness. Especially Strunk and White, which is pretty well debunked at this point:

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003463.php

[Kaizyn]

Sorry, derleth. It's not a matter of someone defining correct usage. It's simply a matter of looking at the dictionary definitions of the words 'affect' and 'effect'. Affect simply means to influence while effect means to bring about.

[derleth]

Downvoting linguistic knowledge doesn't make it any less true.

[mtinkerhess]

I'd be curious to see an example of a dialect in which "to affect change" is more correct than "to effect change"?

[tedunangst]

Some people seem to like pushing descriptivism too far. "Somebody said it, therefore it's correct."

[hdevalence]

What basis for judgements of correctness would you suggest, if not facts about how English speakers speak English?

[tedunangst]

A majority, or at least a substantial minority? (Don't interpret common mistakes as proof of correctness. Most (all?) people who spell 'lose' as 'loose' will at least acknowledge their mistake when it's pointed it out. Nobody thinks 'loose' is actually correct in their "not prestige" dialect.)

[Kaizyn]

For correctness, it should be how educated speakers speak English. In this case, I would also settle for "how published authors write English."

[mtinkerhess]

How about facts about what nearly all English speakers agree is the correct usage?

[FkZ]

Neither one is more correct in isolation as they mean different things.