The phrase "a serious difference to" is not correct in standard English usage.
It is typically used to indicate a significant impact or change, but the preposition "to" is not appropriate in this context.
Example: "The new policy made a serious difference in employee morale."
Alternatives: "a significant impact on" or "a major change in".
But a new report by the Institute of Public Policy Research IPPRR), due to be published later this week, suggests that £40bn would be the minimum size worth bothering with if the new bank is to make a serious difference to the economy, and urges Osborne to allow it to raise funds on capital markets to boost its lending power to £100bn.
Yet shale gas is unlikely to make a serious difference to the country's supplies for several years yet.In March China set production targets of 6.5bcm by 2015 and up to 100bcm by 2020, and announced measures to encourage competition, along with various financial inducements.
If you speak multiple languages, consider signing up as a volunteer; a few minutes of your time could make a serious difference to someone in need of immediate help.
In July 2011 the council got £74,000 for A Somnambulist – a figure beneath the auctioneer's estimate, and a sum that cannot possibly have made any serious difference to Bolton's finances or plans for a new city art store.
It looks like a pretty serious difference to me, although we're still talking dark grey on light grey as opposed to black and white.
It will make no serious difference to the allied campaign, and the whole thing will end up in a bloody mess.
PSVI has the potential to make a serious difference; it has started to do so and now needs to be strengthened.
One way to make a serious difference in suicide prevention is to change and expand the way we talk about suicide.
If you want a serious difference in quality, the hardware has to be much bigger, and that's the problem: they're trying to make it two things at once and, exactly as you might assume, it feels a bit like Frankenstein's monster".
Yet some critics, such as Isabelle Attard, a French congresswoman, said the part-time program is simply not large enough to make a serious difference.
