I saw a poster use it yesterday in a post and I thought it sounded interesting (never heard it before,) so I used it at dinner time. My mum was horrified, and said it was an Americanism, but that even most educated Americans objected to it. But my mum can be a grammar Obersturmbannführer at times, so I asked our English teacher this morning. He said that it may appear in an American dictionary, but was not recognised as anything other than American slang by the OED, and I should avoid ever using it, as the perfectly well established 'converse' has the same meaning.
I Googled it and got mixed results.
This site said -
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2...rapher-part-4/Conversate does not yet have an entry in either the OED or Oxforddictionaries.com, but this does not mean that it isn’t a word.
It seems to have been formed on the analogy of it being a corresponding verb for the noun conversation, but in standard English, the usual verb is ‘to converse’.
But a lot of other sites said it was slang and should be avoided, as it makes you sound uneducated - cos the perfectly good word 'converse' has been around for centuries.
So what do people here think? Use it or not?