Sometimes after addressing a particular grammatical issue,
another related one comes up. Such is the case with yesterday’s verbing of
nouns. The flip side to that coin is the nouning of verbs. Like verbing,
nouning is found mostly in business jargon. One that has been around a while but that has been coming up lately in meetings I attend is
ask.
“Margaret, could Inventory Management verify allocations for
a hundred SKUs before the weekend?”
“It’s Thursday, Bob. That’s an awful big ask.”
Rather than use the correct word, request, as a way of seeming more current, that which has been
asked of someone is now nouned as an ask.
It has not yet insinuated its noun usage into modern dictionaries, but it seems
to have legs enough to qualify one day.
A classic that has been around a long time is a tell. In any bluffing game, most
obviously poker, a tell is an
involuntary giveaway of something you are trying to hide. It can be the death
knell of a player if the tell is discernable, reliable and unknown to the
teller. It’s a wonderful usage.
So, tell is a cool
one and ask is an awful one; the
moral of the story is, don’t ask, do tell.
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