Nonstandard Language

Yesterday a young man in his early thirties said "conversate." I challenged him, "That's not a word although it sounds as if it should be. Converse is the proper word." That reminded me of the time almost 20 years ago when I laughed with another young man in one of my college classes after he said "impactful," an adjective form which scholars would reject as nonstandard at best. (Scholars do not like "impact" being used as a verb either--originally it was a noun only.) I hear lots of well-educated people saying "impactful" now. After TV filled the airwaves with commercials for home products, advertisers created "glamourize" to describe shiny kitchen floors. Viewers accepted the new expression and now we have lots of words ending in -ize. A clever sales move to "impact" the language like that! "Orientate" for orient and "irregardless" for regardless also come to mind. People make up these expressions and think others will think they are articulate, rather than ignorant and under-educated. Scholars refuse to call these nonstandard expressions words; the expressions are referred to as terms--a lower status than an official word. Yet, given time and popularity with well-educated folks, terms can enter into the language as acceptable later. For now, however, terms and slang should be eliminated from professional conversations. If not, the speaker runs the obvious risk of sounding dumb--or, maybe, clever!