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Here's another newfangled linguistic development I find I can't stand anymore: the use of "google" as a verb.
That has been going on in the evolution of English for centuries, is hardly newfangled, and has made the language a great deal more useful. Shipping freight, shoveling coal, treeing possums, dialing telephones, roofing the house, typing a letter, phoning home, tabling a bill, shoeing a horse, grounding to shortstop, pointing north, painting by number.
Feel welcome to refuse to use any of those, but your language will sound very stilted indeed. Whenever there is a noun in English, it has always been possible to use it as a verb to mean "applying the object", and in many cases, the verb has become more widely used than the noun.
I'm sick and tired of hearing "invite" as a noun instead of "invitation."
Did you get an invite?
Or has it suddenly become acceptable?
English has a unique curiosity. Everything is acceptable, in casual speech, as long as the meaning is clearly conveyed and understood. Even Rasta Brophonics is acceptable, as long as all parties to the conversation are willing to use the forms. It remains English.
If someone says it to you, you may frown if you like, and even correct the speaker, according to how comfortable you feel about doing so.
You're correct when you say "invite" should not be used as a noun (yet) in formal English. But people speaking informally are still speaking English, as long as they both understand each other and don't feel compelled to correct each other, and you as an eavesdropper have no right to object.
Having said that, if they pronounce the noun "invite" accented on the second syllable, well, they are wrong. Verb/nouns are distinguished from each other by the syllable of accent, like "produce" or "reject", or "permit".
An interesting exception there. "Combine". Used as a verb, is a pair of antonyms, depending on accent. It is accented on the second syllable to mean 'put together', and on the first syllable to mean 'separate' (as a crop, using a "combination harvester", commonly called by the noun "combine", and applied out here in the boondocks as a verb). "Y'all started COMbinin' corn yet?" means separating mechanically from the stalks, not 'com-BINE', putting together.
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