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MS Word has been complaining of a grammatical Word Confusion error when I use converge.

Here's my sentence:

Managers had converged the thousands of ideas into a handful of big ideas.

If I drop the from the sentence Word does not find any error. Also, if I exchange converged for combined Word is happy. However, I guess what I would like to say with converge is a mix of merged and combined.

Is that my confusion or is there a better word?

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Pro tip: Using MS Word's grammar checker is a rookie move. – Robusto Oct 23 '12 at 14:01
What you would like to say with "converge" and the normal definitions of "converge" do not really match. Maybe you should just use "combined". – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Oct 23 '12 at 14:03
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Combining ideas takes less effort than to converge them -- they're managers, you see. – Kris Oct 23 '12 at 14:31
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The transitive use of converge sounds a little weird to me. Maybe MSWord has some rule about that (even though dictionaries say it can be used that way (thanks @Kris)). – Mitch Oct 23 '12 at 14:38

4 Answers

up vote 0 down vote accepted

I think that MS Word is correct and that you should change the word to merged or, as you've suggested, combined. Converged is word unto itself and isn't a combination of combined and merged. This is what the Online Etymological Dictionary says:

converge (v.) 1690s, from L.L. convergere "to incline together" from com- "together" (see com-) + vergere "to bend" (see verge (v.)). Related: Converged; converging.

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I do realize its not a combination of those words, strictly speaking. But your dictionary definition seems to fit what I'm trying to say better than either merged or combined. – Stoney Oct 23 '12 at 14:57
I think that the transitive use of converged is a misusage. Things converge, people don't converge things. Couldn't find transitive use in BNC or COCA. It's not natural American English. – Bill Franke Oct 23 '12 at 15:49
@Stoney, the problem is that "converge" is not a transitive verb. You may say that "ideas converge (by themselves)", but you cannot say "I converged these ideas". – JSBձոգչ Oct 23 '12 at 15:56
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My understanding is that things can converge but you cannot converge them. Maybe a better fitting word would be "coalesced." The sentence is a little clumsily put together anyhow, even if it was valid for managers to converge things. Was there any outstanding idea that emerged or something else a little more exciting than unknown ideas converging?

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I doubt "coalesced" would be understood by my intended audience and perhaps the same is true for "converged". Basically, thousands of independently developed overlapping ideas were gathered. Then the managers took the ideas, used software to sort them into clusters of related ideas. They then looked at the clusters manually, assessed what was interesting and created 30 broad ideas for further discussion and development. - So loads of converging going on... – Stoney Oct 23 '12 at 15:17
Maybe synthesized? – Bill Franke Oct 23 '12 at 15:51
brainstorming or innovation assisted by high tech conputing or something along those lines? – Chris Oct 23 '12 at 20:35
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Perhaps you could use the word:

distilled (distill) : 4. To separate or extract the essential elements of

which connotes more effort and process than does a simple combination.

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up vote -1 down vote

The real complaint of Word was that you placed a noun immediately after the verb.

You may try

"Managers had converged all of the thousands of ideas into a handful of big ideas."

which resolves the issue.

Any other structural change (between verb and noun) should also do the trick.

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Thanks. That is useful. – Stoney Oct 23 '12 at 15:00
I know the "grammarian" will never show up to comment about his down vote. Lol. – Kris Oct 25 '12 at 4:19

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