And what's happened to "Persuade"?

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Bill Smith - 18 Nov 2008 20:50 GMT

"Convince" seems to have replaced "persuade" almost completely in UK
broadcasting. It seems totally wrong to me to say, for example, "I
convinced him to come with us to the cinema"

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John Briggs - 18 Nov 2008 21:36 GMT

> "Convince" seems to have replaced "persuade" almost completely in UK
> broadcasting. It seems totally wrong to me to say, for example, "I
> convinced him to come with us to the cinema"

It depends how much persuading he needed :-)

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John Briggs

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Bill Smith - 19 Nov 2008 10:23 GMT

> > "Convince" seems to have replaced "persuade" almost completely in UK
> > broadcasting. It seems totally wrong to me to say, for example, "I
> > convinced him to come with us to the cinema"
>
> It depends how much persuading he needed :-)

Exactly. I'd reluctantly accept "I convinced him to give himself up to
the police", but would prefer "I convinced him that he should give
himself up". Going to the cinema may indeed require _hard_ persuasion,
but I still feel "convince" would be wrong in this kind of "argument".

IMHO, you convince people _that_ a situation is as you say it is, or a
course of action is the right one but you don't (well, didn't!) follow
it with an infinitive. Otoh, you do follow "persuade" with an
infinitive - not invariably, but most of the time.

BS

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Discussion Groups / British English / November 2008

And what's happened to "Persuade"?