[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.