Red Echo

November 3, 2010

When did the verb “ask” become a noun, as in “their minimum ask was $50k”, and what was wrong with “request”?

3 Comments

  1. I’m of the opinion that natural language is constantly imploding itself, with meanings converging. We occasionally introduce new words, but they all begin to converge again.

    Like, why do we need the words fantastic, wonderful, terrific, incredible, and great, to all mean the same thing? They didn’t, formerly, and I find myself frequently wishing that we could still say things like “his claims were fantastic” to mean that his claims should be relegated solely to the realm of fantasy, or “that news story is incredible” to mean that I do not find it believable. The closest I can come now for the latter is “I can’t credit that news story”, and I can’t find any satisfying substitute for “fantastic” at all.

    Although, hmm, maybe this way I can use this to my advantage, by exclaiming “God is _fantastic_!” around all my Christian family. That should throw them for a loop… :)

    Comment by Micah Cowan — November 3, 2010 @ 3:53 pm

  2. Probably about the same time “photoshop” became a verb…

    Comment by Paul — November 3, 2010 @ 7:19 pm

  3. Here’s a fairly interesting site I found on this topic: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=340

    Comment by Adam — November 5, 2010 @ 7:36 am