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I love this very much and strongly agree: I hate receiving those sheepish catch ups, especially when I anticipate an ask coming. In fact, if I sense I want to m
by tejaskumar_ 2y ago
I love this very much and strongly agree: I hate receiving those sheepish catch ups, especially when I anticipate an ask coming. In fact, if I sense I want to make an ask but I haven't spoken with someone in a long time, I just won't ask them for the thing because we don't have that context/rapport yet: it's a way of honoring them.
Continuing to make it practical, one thing that has served me well was to maintain a list of friends (I still do this) and text them at least once every day just following up or checking in. Some like it, some don't. For those that don't, that's their choice. The topics around abandoning lost causes kind of apply there: not that these people are lost causes, but daily checkins are. That's okay, to each their own. :)
- carlosjobim 2y ago> 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?
- tejaskumar_ 2y agoIt's just shorthand for when people want to ask for things, common among investors (so, YC/HN).
- hollerith 2y agoSo a request, then.
- tejaskumar_ 2y agoyes
- smcin 2y agoIt's techspeak for 'a request'.
- caseyohara 2y agoI find it interesting that techspeak has a way of turning verbs into nouns. Ask, invite, compute.
- LoganDark 2y agoIs "an invite" techspeak?
- smcin 2y ago"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-as-a-noun https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/can-you-use-invite-a... [1]: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/68937/invite-vs-invitation https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/68937/invite-vs-...
- carlosjobim 2y agoThe proper word is "invitation".
- smcin 2y agoI 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.
- tayo42 2y agoI thought it's corporate America jargon
- caseyohara 2y agoTechnologists 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.
- aragonite 2y agoOED 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 https://english.stackexchange.com/a/111601