I am not the sort of person who receives an inordinate number of invitations, likely due in no small part to my propensity to swing conversational topics away from things like popular movies or good books and over to the specifics of the language by which one talks about such things. As such, it is not in the cards for me to be picky about the tenor of an invitation. I never understood the people who refuse to go to a party because they were invited at the last minute. My response is always, “I’ll be ready in three minutes, thanks thanks thanks.” This may be because I was — and this may surprise some of you — not one of the popular kids in high school.
Okay, actually, I’m lying. In truth, I am picky about the invitations I accept, just because many of the things that my friends enjoy doing hold no inducement for me. Bars, dancing, sunny day beach trips, all not my cup of tea. Unless there’s cheap food or a thrift store involved, I’m out. But when I reject an invitation, I always have a valid reason: it sounds boring. Some other people do not; instead they complain about the fact that they have not been given an invitation, but rather an invite. This is because those people assume invite is either just a recent truncation of the full and more proper invitation, or the recent co-opting of the verb invite into a noun. In either case, it’s unacceptable. As Eric Partridge writes in Usage and Abusage:
“invite for (an) invitation is incorrect and ill-bred and far too common”
A sharp dismissal. Except, wait, what the hell does it mean for a word to be “ill-bred”? The only meaning I can come up with is that the word was formed through improper means. But that’s patently false, as nominal invite comes from verbal invite by the same means as some uncontroversial nouns like command and request, both of which started life as verbs according to the MWDEU. In fact, this method (zero-affixation) of forming nouns from verbs used to be quite commonplace. Arnold Zwicky has found that nominal request took the place of nominal ask, which first showed up a millennium ago. Adam Albright found the following words in the OED as nouns:
adorn, disturb, arrive, destroy, relate, pray, recede, announce, ask, think, amaze, depart, reduce, produce, maintain, retain, detain, deploy, retire, acquit, greet, defend, divulge, startle, entertain, vanish
The attestations of these are all in the past; it’s likely few people would consider all (or even many) of these valid nouns nowadays. But I think it gives some evidence that invite isn’t ill-bred; it’s attested back to the 1600s in the OED, and it was formed by what used to be a pretty productive rule. So it’s not incorrect, it’s not ill-bred, and since neither of the first two hold, there’s no reason to complain about its commonness. Sorry Eric Partridge, but zero-for-three.
Now, there does seem to be some truth to the claim that invite is less formal than invitation; the MWDEU’s historical examples of nominal invite are often from the mouths of lower-class characters or light writing. But being informal is not the same as being bad grammar, no matter how badly the prescriptivists want that to be the case.
Summary: Nominal invite, as in I got an invite, isn’t a recent piece of bad grammar. It’s been attested since the 17th century and it came from a previously common grammatical rule. At worst, it’s informal. I’d use invitation if you don’t feel like a fight, but when you’re in a bad mood, use nominal invite and tear into anyone who dares object.
Motivated Grammar 
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July 28, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Jonathon
I must confess that nominal invite bothers me and has bothered me since childhood, even though it appears to be perfectly valid in view of the historical usage.
There’s something there that I think needs to be researched—how is it that you can know that something should be okay and yet still feel so strongly that it’s ugly and wrong? I think an awful lot of usage prescriptions are based on this sort of illogical feeling, and then the authors of the prescriptions try to create post hoc justifications for the prescriptions. Knocking down those fallacious justifications is easy enough, but I can’t help but feel that the practice misses something vitally important about the psychology of prescriptivism.
July 28, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Alex
Jonathon has an interesting point. But, as I see it, people who feel strongly (negatively or positively) about some arbitrary point and do so in complete opposition to evidence they are aware of, these people are plentiful and their behavior is well studied from a sociological and psychological point of view.
Who are these people? armchair racists (people who might say “I don’t hate ALL black people, just those that are uneducated …”), or skeptics who are religious (people who understand and agree that evolution is a fact, don’t believe in absurd things like ghosts, yet have no trouble believing in miracles like the virgin birth and red sea parting, or logical inconsistencies like a loving personal god who destroys cities for being full of sin and kills every first born egyptian child because of their leader’s stubborness.)
The reasons we believe things like “the word ‘like’ as used as a discourse marker by teenagers today drives me mad” or “you just shouldn’t use the word invite when referring to a noun” has to do with the input (explicit and implicit) you received as a child. Just like is the case with people who have unquestionable affirmations of the one true faith of Judaism but deny the existence of zeus and Vishnu.
The psychology of prescriptivism is likely very similar to the psychology of racism or spiritualism or conservatism/progressivism. It’s all about our experiences during our formative years (ages 0 to 20+?).
July 28, 2009 at 3:04 pm
mike
I wonder whether use of nominal “invite” is holding its own (versus, say, nominal “entertain”) because it appears in various technological contexts — an “evite” (tho the site is careful to use “invitation” for the noun), or gmail (with its Send Invite button).
I don’t think the words are entirely interchangeable; I believe you cannot say “This event is by invite only.” (?) Perhaps nominal “invite” occupies a subset of the space claimed by “invitation” — ? I can’t offhand think of the opposite, where “invite” (n) works but “invitation” does not. Then again, I’m not trying very hard.
July 28, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Bill S.
Alex’s point about bias learned early is an apt one, but I want to quibble with it a bit. A very large chunk of prescriptivism is indeed based on acceptance of language judgments that you encounter early in life. There’s another kind, however, that involves a kind of knee-jerk reaction to language *change* that you encounter after you’re past your twenties. I was never, for example, told that “X graduated high school” was bad in any way when I was young, but then again, I don’t think anyone I knew said that in my high school. From an intellectual standpoint, I know there’s nothing wrong with the expression, and I don’t let myself mark off for it in student writing, etc. — but I’m aware I *do* have a knee-jerk reaction against it (I’m drifting inexorably geezerwards).
Of course, Alex could still be covering that kind of response with his reference to “implicit input.” It’s just that some kinds of implicit input (e.g., disapproving facial expressions) can’t be linked to constructions that don’t exist yet, but many older speakers *will* react badly to those constructions when they come into existence. It’s a sort of linguistic equivalent of arthritis.
July 28, 2009 at 4:05 pm
mike
Bill, excellent point. Does this also apply to regionalisms? (Is “graduated” vs “graduated from” a regional difference or a generational one?) I grew up in the West, but am married to a woman from New England, and even after years, I still feel the knee start to quiver when she says she’s going to “bring” some books to the library.
Sorry, Gabe, getting slight off topic here.
July 29, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Bill S.
Mike —
I’m sure “X graduated high school” started *somewhere* (or several somewheres) and spread, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a wider age-range in one area is using it than in another. Any regional feature you’re not familiar with can trigger that linguistic arthritis effect when you do encounter it. I grew up using the multiple modal expressions “might should” and “might should ought to” (Alabamian), and caught myself being bothered by Texans’ use of “may can.” Again, I’m not saying that kind of irritation is a reasonable or a good response — I know full well it’s baseless and dim, and try to run interference on it as soon as I realize I’m having it. Judging by over two thousand years worth of written records about how “young people don’t talk right anymore,” though, it’s a very common problem.
July 30, 2009 at 10:06 am
The Ridger
Much of it (the “kids and they way they talk!”) may be a reaction to the implicit rejection of, not just the “correct way to speak”, but the person doing the reacting.
August 3, 2009 at 12:42 pm
sciamanna
It sounds like “ill-bred” doesn’t refer to the word “invite”, but rather to the person who would commit the social faux-pas of sending an “invite”. In other words: class. Often the issue with prescriptivists…
August 5, 2009 at 4:13 am
Stan
The chief difference between invitation and invite (n) seems to lie their relative degrees of formality. I also agree with sciamanna that class is a factor – at least, the projection or perception of class. Fowler wrote that invite (n) “has never, even as a colloquialism, attained to respectability”; Gowers repeats this in his revised second edition, while Burchfield (Fowler’s 3rd) gives a few inches but no more. I’ve used both words, but in formal contexts I would probably automatically use invitation, though I cannot accurately assess how right or wrong I am in perpetuating what is merely a convention.
Jonathon’s point about post hoc justifications is an interesting one, and has occurred to me before, particularly with regard to film reactions and reviews. Sometimes I suspect that we react mostly emotionally to films, then justify our reaction intellectually. (Obviously there is no clear division between intellect and emotion, but there are emphases.) I’ve had wildly different reactions at different times to the same film, and could argue the case either way depending on how much I was prepared to indulge or forgive the filmmakers or allow for environmental factors.
People are adept at justifying anything to themselves. I studied genetics with a girl who believed the planetary fauna and flora were created in seven days. There may be a similar – albeit milder – process at play in our reactions to certain linguistic usages. Prescriptivist urges creep up in my mind now and then, but I weed them out unless I think they serve a useful purpose. Some do. The point being that I try to make a habit of justifying my justifications.
Stephen Fry wrote (and said) something that seems relevant, if you’ll excuse me lengthening further an already overlong comment:
‘You slip into a suit for an interview and you dress your language up too. You can wear what you like linguistically or sartorially when you’re at home or with friends, but most people accept the need to smarten up under some circumstances – it’s only considerate. But that is an issue of fitness, of suitability, it has nothing to do with correctness. There is no right language or wrong language any more than are right or wrong clothes. Context, convention and circumstance are all. I don’t deny that a small part of me still clings to a ghastly Radio 4/newspaper-letter-writer reader pedantry, but I fight against it in much the same way I try to fight against my gluttony, anger, selfishness and other vices.’
August 28, 2009 at 11:56 am
Gabe
I don’t think I have anything much to add to this discussion, which is why I held off commenting for so long, but I just wanted to thank you guys for having it. I had a blast reading it and it raised some points that will remain milling around in the noggin awhile.
July 26, 2010 at 8:47 am
Barney
I don’t think “formed through improper means” is the intended meaning of “ill-bred”. I think by an “ill-bred word”, Eric Partridge would mean the sort of word used by an ill-bred person, where an ill-bred person can refer to someone that that doesn’t fit into some sort of elite group, either by their manners, socio-economic class, or by the class and position in society of their ancestors.
It’s the sort of word used by a person who is formed through improper means, although the means could either be the way the person was socialized into society, or their ‘improper’ choice of parents.
It is of course a highly offensive idea.
September 17, 2010 at 1:49 pm
‘Impacted’ is a verb. So is ‘tweet’. « M J Wright
[…] means that ‘You have an invite to lunch’ is bad grammar. It’s used, of course, and has been since the seventeenth century. But it’s become good grammar. I’ve seen that usage, lately, even on formal and […]
April 18, 2011 at 8:24 am
Jed
Prescriptivism is a lower middle-class disease. Such people are overly-concerned with the “correct” bourgeois affectations in clothes, language and interior design because their belonging to the class is so tenuous. they live side-by-side with the upper levels of the working-class and they feel compelled to emphasize the “distinctions” provided by their educations, etc. Public school teachers (USA) are the classic representatives of the class and of the behavior.
I appreciate the Stephen Fry quote. There is no absolutely correct language, there are only styles — and a variety of them to suit different purposes, many of those purposes are best explained sociologically.
My theory about “invite vs. invitation” is presented with no research, so pardon me if I am totally wrong. I believe that “invite” was formed by, or in imitation of, the upper-class of southern England’s habit of shortening words for ease of speech and class distinction. It imitates the Oxbridge sound: breezy usage of abbreviations and acronyms for and by those “in the know.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the initial spread in the USA came from university- educated people trying to imitate the Oxbridge sound in informal speech amongst themselves. It spread to writing as everyone sought to imitate a higher class — so perceived. A more recent import along this chain of social class imitation is the misuse of “sort of,” often thrown in between article and noun in just the same manner as “like.” In fact it has almost become a marker equivalent to “like” but indicating university educated status in distinction to “like.” i.e. “it’s a sort of book about….”
In other words, breaking the rules in all the “right’ places indicates more status than scrupulously avoiding breaking any! Dig into the sociology of language and find many answers that philology alone will never answer. Not sure who turns out to be “ill-bred” in all this. It’s ‘glass houses’ in my opinion. I agree with Barney’s comment that “ill-bred” is an offensive idea.
It suggests the speaker is using affectations to gain implied status at the expense of others.