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.
Transcript of “Conversate is Different From Converse”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, hello, I’m Wilson from Charleston, South Carolina.
Well, hello, Wilson. Welcome to A Way with Words.
Welcome. What can we do for you?
Hi, thank you so much.
I’ve been wondering for a long time about the word conversate. I mean, it’s a word that I really used more in childhood and really teenage years. But I didn’t really know until I got a lot older that it really wasn’t a word. Or wasn’t proper English, how would I use it? Like kind of in our culture, when we would say, hey, like let’s conversate over some business. You know, it was a term that would be used instead of like conversation or converse. We would use conversate. And even in like I’m married now, but in the dating stage, kind of in the urban culture, it’s kind of the word is cool. It really is cool. So we’d say something like, you know, the music’s really loud over here, sister. Well, how about you come over here and let’s conversate together? You know, so.
I can just see you on the dating scene, Wilson. That sounds pretty smooth.
It’s smooth, but it’s a lot smoother than converse. You know, you can’t come over here and converse. That’s not smooth and smooth. You conversate. You know, in our culture, a word has to have some rhythm and some color and smoothness to it, and conversate has it. But converse and conversation doesn’t have that. So why isn’t conversate? Let’s conversate about this, guys.
All right. We’ve got answers for you here. We’ll conversate about this. I think you made a great case. I was glad you corrected yourself about it not being a word because it absolutely is a word to conversate. And actually, it’s got 200 plus years of history in English.
Ooh. And another thing that going in favor of conversate is that it is more closely spelled like the Latin verb it comes from than the word converses.
Wow. Yeah. But they do come from exactly the same root. So converse and conversate come from the same root. So what’s happened with conversate here is it has its own life. It’s not a corrupted version necessarily of converse, although part of it might be what’s known as a back formation, where somebody took the noun conversation and then said, oh, maybe there’s a verb conversate, and then they began to use it that way. But the verb conversate has existed on its own. It doesn’t require the support of the verb converse in order to exist and have a fully-fledged, full-word life.
That said, there is also, and you really narrowed in on this, there is a meaning difference between the two. Conversate is about emotional or lively conversation. Conversating is more about chatting or discussing personal things or kind of a one-on-one. Converse is formal and could be about anything. You could converse with a clerk at a store about your purchase and the problem with it, but you would never conversate with a clerk at a store about your purchase and the problem with it. So there’s definitely a register and tone and meaning difference there between these two verbs. There’s a reason we have both.
Wilson, you’re making me feel like it’s a warmer word than converse. It just feels warmer and friendlier.
Yes, I do feel that way. But, I mean, I had to just abandon it when I became older and somebody corrected me and said, conversate’s not proper English. And then from that day on, I stopped.
Send them to us. We’ll correct them. But let me just say, so it sounds like you’re African American.
Yes. And it’s, conversate, it’s more common in the black community than it is in the white community, although it is used among white Southerners to a degree. And so that’s also part of it. There’s longstanding bias against non-mainstream dialects in the United States. And people want to refuse that these dialects, including Black English, can have their own words or have the words they use more often than the mainstream dialect. And so that’s part of what’s happening here. When people rip on conversate, they’re basically saying that comes from a dialect I don’t speak and I won’t allow it.
Wow. But it’s not like it’s not a word.
That’s right. Exactly right. And conversate, as you well know as a speaker of Black English, conversate is not the only word that is treated this way.
So many other words.
Exactly. Oh, wow. This is amazing. You called the right place. This is fantastic.
Yes. I saw it did. All right. Wow. I’m glad we got to conversate about something like this. So hopefully I can start using it again and increase my cool factor with my wife now.
You landed your wife with that cool talk, so something worked out for you.
Yes, it worked out, and I had to abandon it.
Oh, boy. So now, look, I have a new life. I can’t wait to conversate with my wife again.
Yeah. Well, it was good conversating with you, Wilson. We appreciate the call.
Yeah. Appreciate it.
Thank you, guys. Take care. You were fantastic. Thank you.
Well, conversate with us. The number is 877-929-9673.
