# My ask? My foot!

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/07/14/my-ask-my-foot/
- Published: 2008-07-14T09:02:47+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The use of the verb “to ask” as a noun, such as “Making an ask” and “my ask”, has
caused me to wince for some time, especially as it seems to be used more and more
frequently. It struck me as a mixture of laziness – the noun “request” has always
seemed sufficient to me – and jargon, and so I have avoided its use.

But it seems my rancour towards this use is misplaced. According to Arnold Zwicky
on [Langugage Log](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=340), the noun “ask” 
predates “request” by about two or three hundred years. “So a noun ask was a good
thing to have while we were waiting for the French-based request to arrive”, comments
Zwicky.

Fundraisers are responsible for one of “three specialised uses” of the noun ‘ask’,
the other two being card-players and financiers.

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Sport too has been the source of another use of the noun ‘ask’, “namely with an 
adjective denoting large quantity, with somewhat specialized meaning”, akin to a‘
tall order’. For example, “It was a huge ask of my players, but their attitude throughout
the week prior to the game was superb”, cited in Rugby World June 25/1, 2000.

Zwicky’s post has already generated 32 comments so one can see that there is interest
in this word ‘ask’ that is at the root of almost everything fundraisers do.

> [My ask](https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=340)

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