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I needed 3 googles to understand the etymology. But seriously, why is ask being nounified where other verbs are not. I think it has something to do with the culture, but I cannot place my finger on it.

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In the business world, ask has been used as a noun at least since 1985 ("I understand it's a big ask...")[1]

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001331.h...

Goes back at least as far as 1781:

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4246/can-or-shoul...

Nouning verbs (like verbing nouns) is very common in English, to the extent it's often unclear which came first.

It's either New York-ese or investment banker-ese (hard to distinguish between the two sometimes). They also nounify "spend" for some reason.

Ask as a shorted version of Ask Price is something I can understand. But the other uses I see appear awkward.

What the heck does "Ask Price" mean? Never heard that.

"Ask" as a noun, however, I hear all the time...and not from bankers or New Yorkers. It's very common in Bay Area tech.

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