I am a rather rabid descriptivist, but every now and again a word comes along that tweaks my regressive, unevolved prescriptivist dark side. Today I stumbled across one such. Why "effectuate"? From what I've googled, it seems to be a direct synonym of "effect", so what's its raisin debt? Being the devout disciple of descriptivism that I am, I will demur to it if there's a reason for its existence, but at the moment, I can't see one.