Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences - This topic has 10 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 21 years, 2 months ago by
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Why do people say “axed” instead of “asked”? Is this a deliberate changing of the word, or has it just been mispronounced for a really, really long time? Also, what is going on with “hisself” instead of “himself”?
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Name : Tina G., Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, Age : 24, City : Birmingham, State : MI, Country : United States, Occupation : Exhibit designer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,The question could as easily be reversed. Why do we say ‘asked’ instead of ‘aksed’? This is one of those quirks of language standardization; ‘asked’ stuck. It’s not a mispronunciation, it’s a variant pronunciation which was once perfectly acceptable and, depending on where you were, standard. We also say ‘taxed’ instead of ‘tasked,’ but the meaning is the same and the origin is identical. It’s just a question of what maintained itself in print, and therefore became standard. As to ‘hisself,’ this is truly the more logical word. We say ‘HERself’ and ‘MYself,’ so it follows logically that we should say ‘HISself.’ Because English is zany like that, we don’t. But it’s one of many instances where the nonstandard usage makes more sense. The real point here is that standardization has been, in many ways, arbitrary, and that dialect often reflects original usage or logical usage.
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Name : Kathryn26640, Sexual Orientation : Lesbian, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Unitarian, City : Roanoke, State : VA, Country : United States,‘Axed’ actually used to be the Old English pronunciation, and in recent times {ie this century} ‘asked’ was actually the innovation. As for hisself instead of himself, it’s easier to say – simplification of consonant clusters in our words are behind a lot of the constant evolution of how we pronounce words – and ‘his self’ seems to make as much sense to me as ‘him self’, even though I don’t use it myself.
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Name : Netta, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 18, City : Armidale, State : NA, Country : Australia, Occupation : Student, Education level : High School Diploma, Social class : Middle class,This is not a deliberate thing. It’s just a bad case of mispronunciation. I am African American and hear these words used quite often. A lot of the time in my community, people are not concerned with pronunciation, and if you understand what message is being relayed, or what question is being asked, we generally don’t correct grammar. In your question, you asked ‘Why do ‘people’ say axed instead of asked?’ I wonder what PEOPLE you were referring to. Don’t worry, this is Y? Forum, where you can be as open as you want. I hate to say this, but stereotypically, you hear these mispronunciations from many inner-city folk. It’s not necessarily that they haven’t learned proper grammar; it may just be second-nature from using them so much.
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Name : Erika25251, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Christian, Age : 30, City : Los Angeles, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : Grad Student, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,It’s a mispronunciation by people who either don’t know or don’t care to say it the right way. I have heard many Black people say ‘axed’, as well as ‘libary’ instead of ‘library’, ‘bag up’ instead of ‘back up’, and ‘light-skinnded’ instead of ‘light-skinned’, and numerous others. I’ve even heard ‘Janjuary’ for ‘January’! It gets on my nerves, but I don’t criticize. Other races have plenty of words they say wrong, too, though, because of education, foreign accents, regional dialects, and lazy English.
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Name : Makia, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Age : 36, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,‘Axed’ probably comes from switching the the s and k in ‘asked’. ‘Hisself’ may be a blend of ‘his’ and ‘himself’ or perhaps just comes from suppressing the m. Many words have undergone similar changes in their history. I think these particular words are found primarily in African-American communities. I would imagine that they arose because the originators of these forms did not get thorough exposure to ‘proper’ English education. But language is a living, evolving phenomenon–there is no absolutely correct pronunciation or grammar. And language traditions can be a lot more powerful than education. Hence the persistence of such forms.
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Name : John29252, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 46, City : Los Alamos, State : NM, Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class,In Old English, the word we now know as ‘ask’ was pronounced ‘axe.’ At some point–I think around the 13th century, but it could have been earlier or later than that–the /k/ and /s/ sounds in axe became transposed. The new pronunciation, ‘ask’ eventually became the accepted pronunciation. I think it’s quite possible that the tendency for some people to say ‘axe’ is not really a deliberate changing, mispronunciation, or even a physical inability (as many people think) to say it ‘properly,’ but is instead a retention of the original pronunciation. If this is true, I’m not sure how or why it happened.
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Name : Allison, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian, Age : 25, City : Houston, State : TX, Country : United States, Occupation : Technical Writer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,This mispronounciation is not usual among southerners, and Northern Black people (who are only a few generations removed from being southerners.) I don’t know the exactly etymology of ‘axed’ as opposed to asked, but I’m sure that it isn’t some sort of deliberate plot as you have conjectured. One point that I’d like to bring up is that I’ve never heard anyone, not even Kenneth Freaking Brannaugh pronounce ‘asked’ phonetically. Anglo-types typically say ‘askt’ instead of asked … with a clearly pronounced ‘D’. Similarly, most people will say budder and wadder, meaning butter and water. Asked which is phonetically closer to askd is a difficult diphthong to utter in the midst of conversation. A better question, IMHO, is why people pronounce Birmingham as BIR-ming-ham, instead of bir-ming-um as it is correctly pronounced in English. Graham crackers aren’t called Gra-HAM crackers …
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Name : Paul, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Disability : I'm utterly f*cked in the head, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Royal Oak, State : MI, Country : United States, Occupation : sofware engineer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I’ve taken a class about Old English, and the mispronunciation of ask as axe is almost as old as English itself. Speakers of English have been mispronouncing the word ‘ask’ for ages. I’m not too sure about ‘hisself’ and ‘herself.’ It might be people are getting the pronouns mixed up. So instead of thinking of ‘him’ and ‘her,’ they’re thinking of ‘his’ and ‘her,’ then adding the -self onto it to make ‘hisself.’ (Of course, they’re not thinking about the process when they do it.)
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Name : K-Joseph26911, Gender : F, Race : West-Indian American, Religion : Catholic, Age : 19, City : Bronx, State : NY, Country : United States, Occupation : College Student,According to a linguistics professor at Rice University the oringinal pronunciation was ‘axe’, upper class society just added their twist and it it became ask.
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Name : Vanessa, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 30, City : New York, State : NY, Country : United States, Occupation : doctor, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,In the past blacks were not allowed to read, therefore when you only ‘hear’ the english language spoken by white slave owners with a southern accent, a mispronunciation will be embedded into black culture. Through generations many blacks were isolated from white society and kept this accent.
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Name : Bruce, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 27, City : Sterling, State : VA, Country : United States, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,
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