Is "Coordinately Invited" OK?

November 4, 2010 6:02 PM

Is "coordinately invited" a legitimate phrase?

I hadn't heard this until it showed up in an email recently. I immediately assumed it was a homophonic typo for "cordially invited", but a friend thought it was an acceptable usage with a subtly different meaning. The meaning, as I gather it, is "you, as a group, are invited". I googled it, and while it has far fewer hits than the more common "cordially invited", the email author didn't make it up. So, what do you think hive mind? Is it an acceptable phrase?

posted by nzero to Writing & Language (21 answers total)

Best answer: No, it is a phrase whose meaning is not at all apparent. If the person meant "jointly invited" or "all of you are invited" or "all members of the Whoozamawhatsis Club are invited" they should have written that.

Language is for communication. "Coordinately invited" does not succeed in communicating anything intelligible.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:03 PM on November 4, 2010 [10 favorites]

Best answer: I'm going to go with...

wtf. No Freaking Way.
posted by Night_owl at 6:04 PM on November 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Also, almost all the hits on your Google are from sources where the writer's first language could reasonably be assumed to be something other than English. Perhaps this is a phrasing from an English learners' textbook? It is not colloquial US or UK or AU or NZ or CN English, I can tell you that.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:04 PM on November 4, 2010

Best answer: It's legitimate inasmuch as people use it, I guess. I've never heard of it, and "cordially invited" is the correct phrase. The hits I am seeing for "coordinately invited" seem like typos or mistakes -- "coordinately invited" doesn't even make any sense.
posted by m0nm0n at 6:07 PM on November 4, 2010

Best answer: Nope. Wrong on a few different levels, I reckon.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 6:07 PM on November 4, 2010

Best answer: duh, no.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:19 PM on November 4, 2010

Best answer: This is possibly spell check gone wary awry.
posted by jabberjaw at 6:26 PM on November 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Best answer: What you're probably seeing is a manifestation of the Cupertino effect.
posted by mhum at 6:26 PM on November 4, 2010 [5 favorites]

Best answer: It also seems like an iPhone or whatever might try to correct "cordially" to "coordinately", so that could be a possibility too.

yes, yes, eponysterical, i know.
posted by auto-correct at 6:28 PM on November 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It means that if you don't both attend, you'd better not attend at all, because the hostess already has too many single women at the dinner table and what about the dancing afterwards?

Oh, wait, it's not 1958, so it's probably that Cupertino thing.
posted by gingerest at 6:48 PM on November 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Other variations:
Cordinately
Coordinally
Coordially

Usage seems to be equivalent to a fancified "You are all invited".

Coordially is where the party's at - 20800 usages. Putting on my amateur etymologist hat, we start with a few typos/misspellings of "cordially", a little back formation happens, and we end up with coordinately invited.
posted by zamboni at 6:48 PM on November 4, 2010

Best answer: Unless you're calling in an air strike, probably not.
posted by jamjam at 6:52 PM on November 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Best answer: a friend thought it was an acceptable usage with a subtly different meaning. The meaning, as I gather it, is "you, as a group, are invited".

This is what's known as bullshitting, to save face and avoid looking stupid. The gracious thing to do is let it go; I bet already they'll think twice about using the word next time.
posted by hermitosis at 7:05 PM on November 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Native US English speaker here. I have never seen this usage and would assume it was a mistaken corruption of cordially.

Unless longitude and latitude are involved. Geocaching party?
posted by zippy at 7:39 PM on November 4, 2010

Response by poster: This is what's known as bullshitting, to save face and avoid looking stupid. The gracious thing to do is let it go; I bet already they'll think twice about using the word next time.

The friend didn't send the email...
posted by nzero at 8:24 PM on November 4, 2010

Best answer: It's either a mistake with assumed meaning and spell check or they're giving a not so gentle hint for you to not bring any +1s.
posted by DisreputableDog at 8:41 PM on November 4, 2010

Best answer: "Coordinately invited" is a linguistic curiosity known as an eggcorn, where an unfamiliar or confusing word (cordially) is replaced by a word that makes more sense to the user in context (coordinately).

Other examples are "slow gin" for "sloe gin" or "in cohorts with" for "in cahoots with". You should submit it to the folks at the Eggcorn Database.
posted by dontjumplarry at 10:21 PM on November 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

Best answer: ... "Butt naked" for "buck naked" is another nice example. It has gained some legitimacy simply through widespread use.
posted by dontjumplarry at 10:36 PM on November 4, 2010

Response by poster: Submitted to the eggcorn database! Thanks for the tip, dontjumplarry.
posted by nzero at 7:04 AM on November 5, 2010

Response by poster: Oh, and the link.
posted by nzero at 7:19 AM on November 5, 2010

Best answer: Maybe you're being invited to a geocache party. :-D
posted by infodiva at 7:25 AM on November 5, 2010