If I didn’t know better from personal experience, I would think that UWM just lets kids hang out and gossip to get their degrees.

Being a college student can be trying at times. Exam time is always a challenge. Trying to stay home and study while your friends go out can be quite a bummer.

Trying to get through the Union without hearing the English language butchered is impossible.

I have a hard time understanding how college students can still believe that “conversate” is a word.

Are the professors not correcting the improper use of the English language? “Conversate” is not a word. I don’t care how often your friends use it; it makes you sound uneducated every time you use it in public. None of us go out of our way to go to college just to have people be ashamed of us for using words that are not words.

I am embarrassed to be on the bus with other University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students when one is screaming across the bus, “Hey, I gotta conversate wit’ you!” Not only are there an amazing amount of grammatical errors in that sentence, these non-words are always screamed at an ear-piercing volume and pitch.

Not only is it annoying, it is also incredibly embarrassing that people know that these kids go to UWM. No wonder residents of the East Side of Milwaukee dislike UWM students for the most part. The ones I’ve noticed are loud, obnoxious, unrefined and appear uneducated. If I didn’t know better from personal experience, I would think that UWM just lets kids hang out and gossip to get their degrees.

Here’s an idea: Pay attention to the impression you are giving the rest of the city. If you are wearing anything with UWM printed on it, or are on a bus route that leaves the university, please watch your use of the English language, swearing and your volume. You are making our school look bad.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am loud and swear like a sailor, but on occasions that I know I am representing the university, I check myself. If I hear “conversate” one more time, I might explode. The non-word drives me crazy all the time, but it bothers me the most when I know the speaker goes to my college.

How is it possible that two people can go to the same college and receive such different educations from that college? I suppose that may be overanalyzing. I have always been a stickler for proper English. A friend and I always discuss the use of language by our friends and those surrounding us.

My biggest pet-peeve and the misused non-word I hear most often is “conversate.” I can not stress this enough: It is not a word. Look it up in the dictionary, ask an English professor, Google it.

The word is “converse” for Pete’s sake!

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