'convicted' for 'convinced'

[Neal Whitman]

Here's something my dad, who lives in Houston, brought to my attention. I'll
quote his email:

[begin quote]
Yesterday I read a letter to the paper from a young woman who said she
couldn't make up her mind whom she wanted to vote for in the primary
election, so she had decided to wait until the general election and learn
more about the candidates first, because she wanted her vote not to be a
coin toss (though I think she said "to not be"); rather, she wanted to be
"more convicted."  I was tempted to write a response, asking, "convicted of
what -- murder, grand larceny, petty thievery, treason?"  I told [your mom]
about the letter, and she asked me what that told me about the letter
writer, and I said it told me that, whereas she was thinking clearly
regarding not voting when she was clueless about what the candidates stood
for, she was obviously an ignoramus as regards diction and vocabulary.
[Your mom] said there was also another thing it told her:  that the woman
was a "born again Christian," because they really liked to say how they were
"convicted" in their faith.
[end quote]

Does anyone here know about this usage among born-again Christians compared
to the general population? If my mom is right, have politicians used this
word in "dog whistle" political speeches?

Sociolinguistics aside, I think the word is an interesting example of what I
call "implicit backformation" (though if someone knows an already-existing
term for it I'll switch): We start with 'conviction' and get 'convict' by
backformation, but we never actually hear this form; we only hear the result
of the next step: 'convicted' by ordinary past-participle derivation. I
think this story is more likely than semantic extension of the
already-existing verb 'convict'.

Neal Whitman
Email: nwhitman at ameritech.net
Blog: http://literalminded.wordpress.com
Webpage: http://literalmindedlinguistics.com

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