"Convince yourself"

[NerdGirl]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/67443/

Okay, so this was actually a really interesting question and nice answers. But I really have to say that I cracked up when I read it, and especially when I read Eirene's comment about how science profs, and especially physics profs, say this all the time. Because I really got into the habit of saying "convince yourself" when I was doing physics and explaining things to people all the time, and it's crept over into other things that I talk about too. Not religious things or abstract philosophical things, but more things like, "Dad, you really can mute the sound on my TV with that clicker, it's just that you can't hold the button down for too long. Seriously. Play with it until you convince yourself that it works." Things where someone doesn't believe me that something will work, but I know that if they just play around with it, they'll SEE that it works. And people make fun of me for saying it so much! And I'm always like, "I picked it up from other physics people and I can't help it!"

[Marduk]

I've never heard this phrase used in any sort of common parlance. But then again, my science exposure is limited. I agree with TBS; the phrase kinda puts a bad taste in my mouth.

[Fredjikrang]

I don't think I've ever heard this before either, but I have no problem with it. After all, I'm kind of hard to convince, in that I need a reason to believe, and so, if I'm going to convince myself I'm going to look into it until I decide if I think it is true or not.

[NerdGirl]

Yeah, I would agree with you Marduk and with TBS that in a contexts like the one in the question it could be a bit off-putting depending on the situation. It's probably not the best phrase to use when the conclusion you're convincing yourself of is something that's a matter of opinion or is very subjective or personal. But I've only really heard it used and used it myself in situations where the thing people are convincing themselves of is very objective but just maybe not so obvious. Like in my previous example, the mute button on my TV clicker really does work, but you have to push it fast and not hold your finger on it forever, and my dad didn't believe it so I told him to try it until he had convinced himself. Or if I'm showing someone that some big huge messy equation simplifies down to something very short, and they don't believe me because it's a mess and there are a lot of steps and they get lost watching me try to do the algebra on the whiteboard, I might tell them to write it down for themselves and try to convince themselves so they aren't just taking my word for it. It's basically like saying, "Try it out for yourself so that you understand it intrinsically and aren't just believing me when I say it," only it's much shorter to just say, "Convince yourself."

[NerdGirl]

Another one is "consider." "Consider a spring of spring constant k..." You see stuff like that all the time in physics and then it starts to spill out into your general speech, and you find yourself saying things like, "Consider us going to France for spring break." And people are like, "Why are you talking like some sort of weird robot?"

[Marduk]

The phrase to me just smacks so much of "I know this isn't true, but you need to convince yourself of it anyways." Sort of like, if I believe in the magic hard enough, then pixies will give me special dust and I can fly. In the context that you're saying it in, it really doesn't sound like an accurate way to say that. Something along the lines of "try it out" or "test this and see if it works" would work better. The word convince is too psychological.

[Marduk]

Hrmm, I think I might be seeing the problem.

From Websters: "convince: to overcome by argument"

and here's the kicker, the second definition: "obsolete: demonstrate, prove"

So it seems like you folks are just an antiquated version of the word.

[mic0]

Is it obsolete if they're all using it?

/so deep.

[Tao]

Is it obsolete if they're all using it?

/so deep.

It may well still be. It's just that we are as well.

[Laser Jock]

Hrmm, I think I might be seeing the problem.

From Websters: "convince: to overcome by argument"

and here's the kicker, the second definition: "obsolete: demonstrate, prove"

So it seems like you folks are just [using] an antiquated version of the word.

I agree with Eirene and NerdGirl; in the sciences (or at least in physics, where I'm the most familiar), "convince yourself" is utterly common. It simply means that someone has just presented a concept that is objectively provable but is unintuitive. (For instance, if you do a derivation you can see for yourself that a particular situation/equation comes from a few basic laws, even if the jump isn't immediately obvious. A good example might be practically anything involving relativity.)

As to your argument that this sense is obsolete, I'd first of all echo Mico and ask if it can really be obsolete if so many people are still using it. I also looked in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, one of the most authoritative sources for word usage, and found the following (pg. 298):

A review of the evidence in our files shows that almost always when convince is followed by a clause, mental acceptance only is connoted.

... which is to convince itself that there are too many lines in a sonnet. —James Thurber, letter, 23 June 1952

... after he convinced himself that she was all right —"Centaur in Brass," in The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, 1950

So they define convince + clause as "mental acceptance," which is precisely the meaning that we've been trying to say.

Marduk, are you trying to convince us that our usage of this phrase is wrong or strange or unusual? Or are you just saying that it sounds weird to you? I can easily accept that to many people it would sound strange; but just because it may sound strange to some people doesn't mean it's not in common usage by others.

[Dragon Lady]

So, in other words, Marduk just needs to convince himself that this usage is acceptable and common.

[cough]

[Laser Jock]

So, in other words, Marduk just needs to convince himself that this usage is acceptable and common.

[cough]

Haha. I just realized something that might help: I don't think Marduk is really saying that our usage is wrong. He's just saying that he doesn't like it because it sounds weird to him. In that case, well, there's no argument to be had. (Marduk, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. )

[Indefinite Integral]

Judt to put in my two cents, "convince yourself" doesn't sound weird to me either, but I also come from a sciency/math background and say it on a regular basis while teaching math.

[TheBlackSheep]

This is so weird, like discovering some new subculture that I never knew existed.

[Marduk]

Science people are so illogical.

[Digit]

Other math/science favorites:
"The proof is left as an exercise."
"After some obvious simplification, we get..."
or sometimes the honest
"The proof is beyond the scope of this text."

[Indefinite Integral]

Other math/science favorites:
"The proof is left as an exercise."
"After some obvious simplification, we get..."
or sometimes the honest
"The proof is beyond the scope of this text."

Haha, good times. I've definitely heard all of those. There was actually one class I was in where we banned the professor from using the word "obviously".

[NerdGirl]

Oh yes, "obviously." I hate that word with a fiery passion that burns deep within my soul. When I was really stuck on a problem, I used to say sarcastically, "Well, the answer is obvious!" and then pretend to shoot myself in the head.

And I think I'm so firmly entrenched in the "obsolete" definition of convince that it sounds abhorrent to me to use it to mean "to overcome by argument." Arguments are about opinions, typically, and you can't convince someone of something that's an opinion! At least not in my world.

[UffishThought]

I'd just like to weigh in to say that if someone told me to "convince myself" of something I was unsure of or didn't believe, it would leave a bad taste in my mouth, too.

Example: I say "I really don't like the Twilight books much." A friend says "You just need to convince yourself that they're excellent character studies and fantastic romances." I look at them like they're crazy, for two reasons. One, it's based on logic that I'm obviously not seeing, and the fact that they've shared their conclusion doesn't help me recreate the steps they used to get there. Secondly, it sounds condescending. Telling me what I "need to do" is almost always from someone who either has authority over me (tonight for homework you need to finish your papers), or by someone who thinks they know how to run my life better than I do (you need to take a chill pill). To hear it from a stranger puts it in the second category, and I don't appreciate it when people I don't know give me orders, even if their advice is sound.

[Fredjikrang]

I guess that I could understand it sounding strange for concepts that don't have a concrete answer, such as Uffish's example. But in testable situations, I don't see any problem.

Maybe that is why there is a divide? The more science oriented crowd is used to working with objective things, and so it doesn't both them as much, while the more artistic/relative crowd finds it somewhat unsettling, since they are mostly dealing with subjective things?