There is currently an emphasis in the funding of universities in the UK on the demonstrable impact of research. In this article we explore the work of the second generation of the Anglo-Scandinavian School, those linguists who were amongst the first to take the formal study of modern languages at university level out into the schools. We argue that their work is an excellent historical example of research into language having an impact in the real world, and we go on to argue that it was able to do so because the desire to make a difference was built into their research from the outset.