The Word Invitation Used in Various Ways and Situations

2022年10月25日のリシ・スーナク氏のイギリス首相就任後に執筆した記事です。
もう1年4ヶ月以上経っていますね…

スーナク氏の首相就任演説で使用されていました"invitation"という言葉に興味を持って調べてみました。

In the first passage of Rishi Sunak's first speech as Prime Minister, I was attracted to his saying, "I have received His Majesty The King's invitation to form a government," instead of "I have been appointed as the prime minister by His Majesty The King." The usage of the word invitation intrigued me.

I usually see invitation or its verb form invite used to ask someone about coming to a social event. To give you sentence examples: I got an invitation to a party; They invited me to go to Paris with them.

However, I found out that the word "invite" originally meant to request or ask someone to do something or to go somewhere. Therefore, it is also used like these: He accepted an invitation to run the hotel; A concert was held by the invitation of the mayor; Successful candidates will be invited for an interview next week.

I assume that people possibly think it is preferable to use an invitation because it sounds more polite and elegant.

Anyway, it is beneficial to see how sophisticated expressions are actually used by native speakers in newspaper and magazine articles, books, films, dramas, interviews, and so on, to expand our vocabulary.

invitation（動詞invite）には、「招待」や「お誘い」の他にも、「要請」や「依頼」という意味があるのですね。

ネイティブスピーカーの文章を読み、発言に耳を傾けることで、言葉の本来の意味や使い方を学ぶことができます。

言葉の意味やニュアンス、使われる時の状況などに興味を持つことは、英語が上手く使えるようになることへの一歩一歩になります。

これからもネイティブスピーカーの文章や発言にもっと触れていきたいです。