Dear Geist,

My writing TA took marks off my essay because I wrote “convince” instead of “persuade.” I looked up the words and they mean the same thing. He said no they don’t and told me to keep looking. Help!

Dear Newbie,

Your TA is technically wrong, but we want to shake his hand for caring about it! To convince is to talk someone into thinking something—changing their mind (their conviction). To persuade is to talk someone into doing something. It’s a fine point, one of many that make the language so precise, expressive and versatile, but so fine that over time, English speakers have used the two words interchangeably so often that they are officially nearly synonymous. You are a writer and you care about subtleties like these, so why not go ahead and honour the difference?