Just Axe-Ing A Question....?

[Spungle]

Has anyone else noticed the growing phenomenon of people who seem unable to pronounce the word "ask"? They instead say, "Ax".

I noticed it a couple of years back in songs, (often by the young black American community) where it happens "Ax me a question...." Then I notice an increase of youngsters, often in Essex, who are doing the same, so clearly not limited to the US black community. I also notice that Lauren "Face Bovvered" does it too. Why?

Where did it start? Is it new, or did I only just notice?! Can they not actually pronounce "ask" or are they doing it intentionally? Or do they really think that's how it's pronounced?

Just axe-ing!

[Spungle]

No, no, it's not the under-educated Oz- I've heard intellectual giants like Oprah and Joey Essex do it quite a bit also...

[woofgang]

dunno but its like words with "s" in the middle. The "s" gets pronounced "sh"
I do think the "ax" thing might be a transatlantic import. Like saying "I'm good" either for no thank you ("Would you like more coffee?" "I'm good") or as an answer for how are you.

[waterboatman]

I agree with that!

[waterboatman]

How many grapes in a bunch of oranges?

[waterboatman]

eleventeen brezaktly.

[MichaelZZ]

I always thought this was an Irish thing. There's an old Irish ballad, Trotting to the Fair, which includes the lines, "Then I axed her, May I steal a kiss or so. And my Molly's grey eye didn't answer No"

[bhg481]

My grandmother, born in 1879, pronounced it "Ax", so not new then.

[THECORBYLOON]

The way I have heard it pronounced in the UK is "arks" with an English pronunciation and some Americans pronounce it as "ax" but either way, it has a long history.

The first complete printed English translation of the Bible in 1535 uses "axe" instead of "ask."

It's not an incorrect pronunciation, it's a different, non-standard pronunciation.

[Quizmonster]

As TCL points out above, in Britain the two versions, 'ask'and 'aks', existed side by side in the past. As I understand it, the aks version was actually the more "up-market" of the pair. However, it lost out in the linguistic lottery of time, though it is now making a bold comeback!

[Peter Pedant]

// Picking fault wiff the underedjumecated is non pc.//

yeah hand-orf da skool kidz ! day dont need no education!
you will be ridiculing the style and content of AB threads next

it is called metathesis (*) - exchange of two letters [do a Churchill V sign and twizzle it]. Modern Egyptians say 'kilopatra' instead of 'Cleopatra'. as two consonants and two vowels together CCVV (**) sounds less natural than CVCV. Arabic tends to have open and closed syllables ( CV and CVC only)

so I suppose the natural supplementary questions are
why metathesis and what metathesis here?

(*) wod dat den ? when tis at home!
(**) where C is consonant and V is vowel for slow readers on AB

oh ENglish you may wonder is basically CCCCVCCCC
just try playing a fixed-string violin
so we put as many consonants together as the unpronounceable polish and russian. but not often

[drmorgans]

Spoken English does have it's cultural and regional quirks, I mean, where does the "r" in "bath" come from. "Barth", I "aks" ye.

[Peter Pedant]

// The first complete printed English translation of the Bible in 1535 uses "axe" instead of "ask." //

oh is that Miles Coverdale's - he was a fellow of my old college and um vicar of St Edward's ( cambridge - vicar appointed directly by da kween)

I heard it in 'murican and if is an old import to Amerikee
then it demonstrates the idea that as languages spread, the rate of mutation slows and older forms persist
( also shows language mutation cannot be DNA linked)
and the dialects further away from the centre are more uniform and preserve older terms)

( blimey can anyone see de saussure's diachronic linguistics galloping over the horizon? neigh ! )

[THECORBYLOON]

In English, there were two words used for "ask". One was spelt "ascian" and the other "acsian" so it's easy to see where "ask" and "aks/ax" come from.

[Peter Pedant]

why is there a /r/ in Bath the village in Somerset?
no the question is - - - why ISN'T there an /r/ in the Tyne city which should be called newcarstle?

post vocalic /r/ - westminster rand pimlico is GOOD
Africa rand australia is BAD ( should not be an /r/ but a glottal stop)

The beeb had a phase of "Aller riz great" which drove me CRAZY
intrusive post vocalic /r/ never occurs in arabic
on my prompting they went to al-ar-hoo
which was better
[ the hoo bit is a masculine nominative - or fatha on an ism in an ism-jumliya - try explaining THAT to the tree-huggers at the Beeb!]

look up rhotacism on wiki as well

[Peter Pedant]

ascian is an infinitive in Anglo saxon innit
and not English -
were you simplifying it for an AB readership?

is sc a /sh/ sound ? ashen? - you can see I am not old enough to have heard the original pronounced ....

[THECORBYLOON]

PP, is it not also Old English?

[Hopkirk]

Don't get me started on Kate Bush, Babooshka.

"He couldn't have made a worst move"