It is official, I must be an old fart now..... I didn't think I was quite there yet, I had envisioned perhaps another decade or two before feeling I would fit the description of an old fart. You know: a crusty old man who would mumble and grunt about things that were wrong with the world but offer up nothing to correct the problems. I thought of myself being pretty cool and not easily bothered by trivial things, especially what other people said or said incorrectly. However, I learned today such is not the case.
I was speaking with a potential vendor that provides educational/training services to the Real Estate Industry. It is a professional organization that presents itself as such since it provides enhanced education to Realtors and others in this space for hundreds of dollars. I was speaking with a sales rep/coordinator who was pitching their service to me. During her pitch she told me there would be certain scripts which would help “me conversate with” my target audience.
Yes, she said conversate. Not converse, or conversation, or even simply speak; but conversate. She decided to cut right down the middle to create the word: conversate. She said it not only once, but a couple of more times thereafter, perhaps to punctuate her point. She said it slowly and deliberately to my chagrin.
I guess what bothered me was prior to the introduction of this synthesized word, she sounded professional and I was listening to everything she said. However, as soon as she dropped the C bomb, I no longer could hear the rest of her conversation. I just heard blah, blah, blah……
I was obviously bothered, but was going let it go and proceed with my day; but I simply could not. I was bothered for three reasons: 1) English was not her second language, 2) from her repeated and deliberate use of this word, it was not her first encounter with it and 3) as a professional sales rep, her job was to communicate effectively and sell me her company’s service; her job is to use words to make money.
I really should not be so bothered by this, as I obviously did not have the courage to correct her nor show her how to properly convey her thoughts. Doing that would have eliminated items 2 and 3 above. But this is where my realization of my new self came into play. I am an old fart because I did not have the courage to correct her but was so bothered by it, I dwelled on it for hours and finally wrote this post about it. However, don’t lose hope, I still have to call her back after reviewing some other data to see if I am going to purchase or not. Perhaps then, I can build up the courage to educate her so she does not continue to misuse that awful word for years to come….....………or not.
But in case you are reading this by some miracle young lady, conversate is not a verb. You either converse or have a conversation, but never conversate. And I may still purchase your service. Thank you.
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