Change with that?
Like any university (I’d imagine), there are bulletin boards all over Berkeley, where student groups can post hundreds of flyers advertising their events. Recently, a workshop for activists has been advertised, telling people that “Intention and action are not the same thing.” The flyer then exhorts, “become a change agent immediately.” Am I the only one who thinks that this is a workshop that will teach people how to dispense coins and small bills to a populace afflicted with bank-issued $20s?
Note that google has 200,000 hits for “a change agent” and 223,000 for “an agent for|of change.” Call these the money reading and the agentive reading. For me, anyway, “change agent” likes the money reading, and “agent for/of” can only be the agentive reading. Now consider the pair causative agent and agent for/of cause/causation. Google gets only 300 hits for the latter, though this comparison is perhaps unfair. Causative agent, despite being a bit redundant, is a term of art, whereas agent for/of cause is merely redundant.