Invite

A bugbear of the English language is use of the word ‘invite’ as a noun. I get countless work emails from native English speakers with an ‘invite’ to this, that or the other, and I always want to correct the grammar to ‘invitation’. Perhaps I should concentrate on attending or not the event to which I’m being invited. But am I alone in noticing this?

Continuing on this grammatically anal track, I met Yusuf for a Swahili lesson and we covered a range of useful phrases such as ‘I have three short friends who are Swahili teachers.’ I must commit this to memory for everyday use.

Meanwhile, the Dar es Salaam traffic rolls on by.