cite ‘citation’ and quote ‘quotation’ [could be clipping rather than nouning]

AMZ comment on LLog “My ask”:

To Andy Hollandbeck, and amplifying a little on language hat’s comment: this use of “cite” is in common use by lexicographers and others searching corpora for citations; “two cites” has appeared on Language Log here (from me) and here (from Mark Liberman), and searches for “cite” in other contexts would undoubtedly turn up many more on Language Log. It is widely used on the American Dialect Society mailing list, which is probably where I picked it up, and on the Eggcorn Data Base.

(The noun “cite” is in NOAD2 but not AHD4.)

As with the noun “ask” (vs. “request”), the noun “cite” has advantages over the alternatives (“citation” and “quotation”/”quote”), in that it is more specific that they are and ties the word to a particular context (in this case, lexicography). And of course it’s shorter.

MWDEU has a nice entry for the noun “quote”, by the way, which has been around since at least 1888 and has been strongly disapproved of by some commentators, though MWDEU notes that it “is now widely used in standard if mostly casual writing”.

The noun cite is in OED3 (Sept. 2002), where it’s treated as a clipping of citation. Cites (chuckle) from 1957.

My notes on invite: in OED2, marked colloquial, with cites from 1659 on; etymological note to cf. command, request, etc.

New Scientist, 20 June 2009, p. 35: “Joe’s status as an AIDS dissident won him an invite [to Peter Duesberg’s laboratory].