Wilson in Charleston, South Carolina, stopped using the term conversate after being told it’s not a real word. On the contrary, conversate is well-established in Black English as a verb that suggests speaking in a register that’s warmer, more intimate, and less formal than that suggested by the verb converse. The word conversate may be a back-formation from conversation, but in any case, it has some two hundred years of history behind it. This is part of a complete episode.
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
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