Is conversate a word? Many people use it and some people claim it’s not a word but I found it on online dictionaries.
Word in question: Conversate
January 16th, 2010 by DwayneCT
14 Responses to “Word in question: Conversate”
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No. The proper word is “converse”. “Conversate” is considered a slang word, If I’m not mistaken.
It is unsurprising that “conversate” is found in online dictionaries. In my experience, most online dictionaries, Merriam-Webster’s included, are descriptive rather than prescriptive. (In fact, most modern paper dictionaries are descriptive. Some say it started when Webster’s Third included the word “ain’t,” loosing the hounds of criticism from the prescriptive crowd.) Some dictionaries include caveats for disputed words like “ain’t” or “irregardless.” In the case of “conversate,” Merriam-Webster Online simply calls it a “back-formation from ‘conversation’ ” without further comment.
Merriam-Webster Online dates “conversate” to 1973. This doesn’t mean that it originated then, that’s merely the earliest written example they could find of it. It likely was in spoken use before that; it may be regional or dialectical, or even slang. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage has no entry for it, which suggests that it is not common. I have never heard or read it.
My own opinion is that “conversate” is unneeded, since we already have “converse,” and I wouldn’t use it. Many consider it improper, and they have a strong case; it is at best nonstandard. But I also wouldn’t get upset with those who do. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. Just don’t make a fuss about it. Unlike, say, cancer, words may wither away if they are ignored, and unused. Who can say where “irregardless” would be if it hadn’t made every words-I-hate-most list for the past seventy years?
As a student of linguistics I’ve never been a language purist, I believe that if people use a word and others accept it is a word regardless of whether or not the language police accept it, or even put it in a dictionary.
Adrian is even more a descriptivist than me. Which I applaud. Perhaps one day I will catch up.
Meantime, here is an interesting take on the state of the dictionary:
http://www.ted.com/talks/erin_mckean_redefines_the_dictionary.html
I agree with Adrian. I see nothing wrong with letting “conversate” become a word, whether language purists accept it or not. It may very well die out in 20 years, or it could become standard.
I mean, there are plenty of back-formations in standard English nowadays. In America, for example, people tend to use “orient” for the verbal counterpart of “orientation.” Yet, in Britain and the Commonwealths, people often use the back-formation “orientate.” There’s no reason for them to do this, since “orient” already existed to begin with, but “orientate” exists nonetheless. And it’s now so common, it’s unremarkable.
I hope this helps.
Vatta, I would suggest that comparing to “orientate” doesn’t really help. Regarding “…it’s now so common, it’s unremarkable…” I would disagree. I realize that some sources do not object to “orientate”, but some do as well. No sources object to “orient”. I’m not saying that “orientate” is right or wrong, I’m simply pointing out that it’s use is more controversial. Personally, I don’t use it.
“Conversate” is not as widely accepted. It is considered slang by most, at least for now.
Actually, I think it would be fun to use “conversate” as a noun. Compare it to precipitate / precipitation. Precipitation can refer to the act of pricipitating and can also refer to the stuff itself that’s precipitating (e.g., rain, chemicals falling out of solution, etc.). Precipitate as a noun means, specifically, only the stuff itself (the actual raindrops, the resultant chemicals, etc.). I say we should use “conversation” to mean that act of talking, and “conversate”, as a noun, to mean the actual words or sentences, something like “HIs conversate was particularly well chosen.” As a noun, it could be pronounced con-ver-sayt, or con-ver-sit, just like precipitate.
porsche, regarding “orientate”, in England, it is not even “controversial”; it’s probably the norm, and is certainly, as Vatta says, utterly unremarkable. Your sidewalk has a curb and my pavement has a kerb; each is correct in one country and odd in the other.
Cecily, perhaps I wasn’t clear or you may have misunderstood. Orientate might be unremarkable in the UK, but that wasn’t my point. Orientate is not unremarkable everywhere. Orient is.
A little history of “orientate.”
“Orient” was borrowed from French around 1740. As a verb, originally it meant ” to cause to face or point toward the east; specifically: to build (a church or temple) with the longitudinal axis pointing eastward and the chief altar at the eastern end” (Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary). Over time–and not much time–it came to mean “to set or arrange in any determinate position especially in relation to the points of the compass” (M-W again). I doubt that in the century or so before the emergence of “orientate” the ecclesiastical connotation was entirely lost.
And “orientate” did emerge. M-W Online dates it to 1848. It is likely a back-formation from “orientation,” which M-W puts at 1839. Objection to “orientate,” according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, began in 1945. I suspect that interaction between Yanks and Brits during WWII may have been the cause.
M-W lists and then summarily dismisses all criticisms of “orientate” but one: it is longer than “orient” by a syllable. And to this quibble they give short shrift. They cite several authors, most British, who have used “orientate,” including W. H. Auden, Aldous Huxley, Tennessee Williams, and one Robert Morely, who probably thought he was being clever when he wrote: “I don’t want to suggest that Chinamen are less aesthetically orientated than I.” (He wrote that as recently as 1974, making him a grammatically-challenged troglodyte.)
So while “orientate” may be “not unremarkable everywhere” (a pretty phrase), it is well established and not incorrect.
Adrian, funny how you’re a linguistics student making comments about language, being that you formulate run-on sentences and, beyond that, managed to leave said sentence incomplete. Got a laugh out of that. Just saying. Lol.
Me,
Adrian claimed to be a student of linguistics, not of grammatology. Give them a break. ;)
Lisa, a study of grammatology isn’t required to use proper grammar. Only of study of grammar is, and a basic one at that.
“Conversate” is an awkward word. It sounds contrived. I think we already have this area covered with converse and conversation. Another code word by people who like to think of themselves as “cool”…
I read the following from the Online Etymology Dictionary, “by 2000, apparently a back-formation from conversation or an elaboration of converse. According to some, from black Amer.Eng.”
orient is where Chinese people come from.