Why do so many people pronounce "ask" as "aks" and am I the only one this irritates?

The term "aks" or "ax" eg; axing you a Q. Is derived from street slang terminology related to ebonics in low income area's within the US, namely New York and Southern California, which are just two of the most prominant. Usually people who stress this type of slang symbolize the area's educational rating as far below substandard. Ghetto's and area's with highcrime rates seem to be the most prominant area's where this slang is used. It is also associated with ebonic ghetto talk, most people who are into rap or ghetto music incorporate the use of this term into their own vocabulary, even though they are intellegent enough to use the latter term correctly. Most people mimic other people to fit within a given group or society, in order to fit into these social circles effectively you need to incorporate their language, dress, and body language. Yet doing so suggests a psychological inferiority complex.

For example; Take the word nigger. Popularized by Richard Pryor to be socially acceptable for African Americans to refer to eachother as a term of endearment or brotherhood. Over the past 20 years it has been stylized by African American rappers into the new term of endearment, nigga's, eg; What's up my nigga?. Rap music inparticular has made the referance socially acceptable among the African American race. But, it is not socially acceptable for the caucasian race to use this term of endearment, even among it's own culture, because of assumed racial context, which is biased and used to invoke racially motivated arguement among the most ignorant.

Or it sounds to me like "Axe." "So and so axed me a question" It seems to be an ethnic or cultural thing. I hear it for some reason 95% of the time from African Americans/Blacks. I have no idea why, except it must be a sociological and cultural thing that many of them hear while growing up. You hear it when they interview football and basketball players alot. At least I do.

It's irritating, but also interesting as to WHY they do it. It can't be due to dyslexia. It has to be a cultural/socio-economic thing.

This is a natural switching of sounds called metathesis. This occurs usually because in the speech sound patterns of that language or dialect that pronunciation may be easier. This is not a degenerate way of speaking. All languages and dialects are linguistically equal. They are all systematic and rule governed.

The word "ask" actually derives from the Old English verb "acsian," and in the 1700's when America was colonized, some of the new inhabitants brought that pronunciation with them. By 1953, "aks/ax" no longer existed north of the Mason-Dixon line and was (and still is) considered a characteristic of the Southern American dialect of English.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070905215517AAMcyDZ

*QOUTE* Actually "aks" comes from middle English and "ask" is modern English. Consider that the majority of slave plantations were owned by Americans with British roots and that explains it. "aks" was still widely used in England during the European/American slave trade period. It is called a metathesis, but it metathesized from "aks" to "ask", not vise-versa. To take it back to Old English, "ascian" and "axian/acsian" were both in use. Some whites with strong British heritages/roots in the U.S and other English speaking countries still use this form as well.

Other metathesized words in English (not limited to any race or country)
asteriks - asterisk
brid - bird
calavry - cavalry
comftable - comfortable
foiladge - foliage
intorduce - introduce
intergal - integral
revelant - relevant
ekcetera - etcetera

Metathesis is not only a phenomena that takes generations to evolve in a language, but its a common occurrence in our daily lives. For example, many children say "pasghetti" before they can say "spaghetti".

* 2 months ago

Source(s):
ESL/EFL teacher of ten years in several countries and I have studied the history of the English language quite thoroughly.

You will also hear a lot of Cajuns pronouncing it as "axe". But I think it's just peculiar to the way they pronounce a lot of words because of the South "Loosiana" dialect. To hear them talk is amusing...but not in a bad way. :-)

The pronunciation of "ask" as "aks" is a West of England dialect that can be traced back centuries. Which does not mean that all uses can be traced back to that, but does give it a respectable antiquity.

No. It irritates me too. The same way that pronouncing the word 'creek' as 'crick' annoys me, or people who say 'wolf' as 'woof' or 'wash' as 'warsh'.

I have a hard time not saying anything, or correcting them. Especially when it's someone I know.

Yeah, I've notice some people pronounce it that way, too. I wish I knew why. Maybe they haven't actually seen the written word.

oops

out of pure stupidity. what about saying pacific instead of specific. this irritates me horribly.

it doesn't really irritate me i just find it kind of odd he also pronounces words like singing "sing-ging"

People have stopped caring about such things, years ago.

i've never heard anyone pronounce it that way.

Are these people cabbies in New York?

Its ignorance. You can't relate it to methathesis of words like some said. They don't pronounce every word they say in middle English pronounciation. That proves that it is not the case. If you actually research it a little you'll see that it is ebonics.
151,000 hits and only one says anything about methathesis

i never heard it but they may not be doing it on purpose

It's maily more of a dialect kind of thing, though it has slid into pop-culture... or from what I have noticed from some hip-hop and whatnot, so a lot of people have picked it up.

For me, I can't say the past tense ("asked") because I sounded like I have a lisp or I can't pile it all into one syllable like it should be, so I say "ast."

"Aks" is highly annoying, but not half as much as substituing "th" with "ff". "I aksed her to go to the store wiff me." Absolutely cringe-inducing.

I think it's simple ignorance and/or rebellion. If you say aks instead of ask, you're either too dim to realize the majority say ask and figure out why and correct yourself, or you don't care and choose to be different. SIMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!

Poets and play-writers of the yore used their own
personal spellings for words. Why no one questioned
about it at that time? Because they knew that
linguistic attitudes of people change with times.

People of all lands
changed spellings of foreign words to suit their
speech habits. The classic example is L. humanus
derived from Sanskrit 'manush' (human).
The name of Russian writer Chekov known to Americans
is spelled Tchekhov by French, Cechov by Italians,
Tsechechow by Germans, Tjechov by Swedes and
Tchejoff by Spaniards. The example for reversing
of consonants - Greek 'philo' is cognate
with old English 'lufu'.

When we are analysing the words which originated
many thousands of years ago, we should consider
all the possibilities of personal whims and fancies
of people.

other examples are:

best bets

task taks

Etc ect

I dunno -- no, you're not. ><