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Comment by carlosjobim | Hacker News Reader

> an ask

I only see people writing this here in HN. Is it some expression from old that has been revived or is it some activist thing?

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It's just shorthand for when people want to ask for things, common among investors (so, YC/HN).

So a request, then.

yes

It's techspeak for 'a request'.

I find it interesting that techspeak has a way of turning verbs into nouns. Ask, invite, compute.

Is "an invite" techspeak?

The proper word is "invitation".

I thought so too until I checked, but the references I cite above say 'an invite' has also been used since the 17th century, at least for US English.

"an invite" is not specifically techspeak because it's widely used outside tech (esp. in US English), unlike "an ask".

Dictionaries say "an invite" has been used as a noun for centuries.

[0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/can-you-use-invite-a...

[1]: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/68937/invite-vs-...

I thought it's corporate America jargon

Technologists seem to have a special proclivity for linguistic nominalization (functional transformation of a verb or adjective into a noun).

Examples: build, patch, commit, deploy, sync, mock, update, upgrade, deliverable, standup, kickoff, resolve, retry. There are probably many more.

'verbing a noun'

Also there's a stylistic difference between coining something new and necessary e.g. 'mock','patch', vs. creating something faddish and unnecessary e.g. 'an ask'.

OED added this use of "ask" (as in a big/huge ask) in 2005 and said it's originally Australian.

https://english.stackexchange.com/a/111601

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