And that suspicion--that there isn't such a verb--is why I started the thread.

I find it very interesting that we do have this concept of directly tricking someone, but when we do assure someone of the truth, to use Jackie's verb, we don't have a single transitive verb that does the trick--at least one I can think of.

We trick each other, we fool each other, we deceive each other--all very direct actions. All transitive verbs.

But where is that verb that clearly shows in its transitiveness that we are leveling with each other? See? There's that bloody preposition. You'd think we'd have a verb that would be the eqivalent of "leveling with"--but perhaps we don't. And I find that to be odd. And very interesting. If true.