and those Americans and their ruffs.
“I need to fix the leak in the ruff.”
Note: “es…” is not the same as “ex…”
Some local sports radio doofballs say “expresso” and “expecially.” Not that it matters.
From what I’ve noticed, no. No one pronounces “task” as “tax,” and “mask” as “max.” The pronunciation only applies to “ask.” I’m not sure what the point is.
It’s not that people who use this pronunciation aren’t capable of saying the word “ask,” just like Bush can say “nuclear” instead of “nucular” if he tried. It’s just that where they grew up, they learned that particular pronunciation, and it’s become engrained. I don’t understand why get so up in arms about it.
As to why only “ask” developed this alternate pronunciation, one can speculate. Perhaps because “ask” has a long history of being rendered as “aks,” going back to its roots from the OE verb ascian, which became acsian through metathesis. As has been mentioned, even Chaucer used “axe” for “ask.” What’s the big fucking deal? “Bird” came from “Brid.”
Furthermore
I grew up in British Columbia and have lived in Alberta since I was 18 and had never heard this until that damn South Park movie. So, now I’m thinking about it and everytime I try to say ‘abowt’, I find myself saying ‘aboot’! :smack:
When I saw the thread title, I immediately thought of Leela in Futurama.
I thought the proper usage was… “Hol’ up fo’ I kin ax you sumpin’… y’all gots wangs and natty lite?”
I have a good friend, who uses “aks.” Her pronunciation of the present tense is somewhere between “axes” and “akkez.” But she clearly stumbles over it. But then, she has no southern roots, and isn’t African American, so the origins of her pronunciation may be different from those of the more common regional dialect - she may in fact have a difficulty pronouncing the word.
semi-related anecdote
A co-worker was once telling me a story about a friend of his who “had a problem with peels.” Here I am, imagining a guy addicted to putting chemicals on his face, or a guy who just gobbles up unprepared bananas. I finally was able to put two and two together and realized I was hearing a story about a guy who took too many pills!
and I hate aks.
Has any other dopers taken linguistics? I took it and seem to remember my prof saying that “aks” rather than “ask” was the initial pronounciation and that over time it shifted to ask.
So going with that theory, no one is wrong. 
***Warsh ** * really grates on my nerves. It’s very common around here. But I’d never dream of telling people they don’t speak properly.
Hell, I was taught the ess-apostrophe form in suburban NY, so “former British Empire” goes back about 200 years!
Now that we’ve all beaten the living crap out of “aks,” let me add another one: “ek cetera.” Morons who says that are, as you might expect, inclined to abbreviate it “ect.”
No it doesn’t. Read the quote:
“Woods” does not end in an /IZ/ sound – it’s not “Woodis” – so we write “Woods’s”.
If Tiger and his family took their golf clubs on holiday with them, we would talk about “the Woodses’ clubs”.
It’s not rocket science.
And my obligatory pet peeve is people who say “illuminous” when they mean “luminous”. “Pronounciation” is another.
Well, I’m Canadian, and I pronounce aluminum as AL-UM-IN-UM, not AL-OO-MIN-EE-UM. I’ve never heard anyone I know say it as AL-OO-MIN-EE-UM, either.
But, lots of us pronounce Newfoundland as NEW-FUN-LAN’ (myself included) 
Always was amused by “axed a question”. Brings forth a mental image of the question being on a note affixed to your office door with a tomahawk…
But then again, being that my English was learned in ESL classes, my big problem developing accent fluency was remembering that no, you don’t need to always pronounce every blessed written character. This is in part why “nukular” “warsh”, etc., though I know them to be accepted regionalisms, never sound right to me. Actually adding more sounds breaks the intuitive pattern (unlike “ax’d”, or “wen’sday”).
It isn’t that big a deal - matter of fact, in the scope of things, it’s infinitessimally small. And now that I think about it, I do understand that just because ‘task’ is spelled like ‘ask’, doesn’t mean they have to rhyme. Otherwise, we’d all pronounce ‘tough’, ‘cough’, and ‘dough’ the same.
That being said, I can’t help the fact that it does sound to me less intelligent to say ‘aks’. I am not saying people who say ‘aks’ are less intelligent than any other person, not at all. Just that if I hear someone say it that way, my first impression is “Learn some English”.
Of course, on the flip side, I imagine if I go down south and say ‘ask’ instead of ‘aks’, their first impression is probably “damn high-fallutin’ northerners and their pompous pronunciation” 
Big difference…“pop” is not spelled “s-o-d-a”
[QUOTE=cdnguy]
Perhaps you meant literally?
“Father” and “forefather” are two different words that mean two different things. In what sense could a person growing up today have been instructed in pronunciation by his forefather? What in your sentence made it obvious that you were talking about someone’s ancestor? If you meant forefather, why did you write father?
These were your words, “If you have to think to speak properly, yes I do think that is a lack of education thing.” Do you see where you are equating thinking before speaking with a **lack ** of education? Now do you see where **I ** am equating **having ** an education with thinking before speaking? In what universe are we making the same point? And why do you say someone who speaks differently from you is lazy, when you are too lazy to proofread even after being called on it numerous times? (arer? your just an ass?)
.I never remotely suggested that you are a racist. Prove otherwise or quit whining.
One more time, read the link that discusses the etymology of the word. It is all explained there.
You started this thread compaining that a particular pronunciation “bothers you no end”. You have been shown over and over why that particular word is pronounced that way, yet you persist in calling those who say it “lazy” and “uneducated”. You have shown in your responses that you can also be lazy, and perhaps your education could stand a little brushing up. You hace resorted to name-calling and strawmen to deflect attention from your obvious lack of debating skills. And as for the “fuck you”, I think I’ll pass, but gee thanks awfully it was such a pretty invitation.
Of course you woould. But that’s a possessive attached to a plural, and is not what was being discussed.
We were talking about a possessive attached to a singular, in this case “Woods.”
I agree that the Fowler’s exception probably doesn’t apply to Woods, and i always add -'s to a singular, even if it ends with s. But the very fact that the rules are rather arbitrary for this practice suggests that it’s not exactly a big deal.
Is it really the end of the world if someone writes “Tiger Woods’ golf clubs” instead of “Tiger Woods’s golf clubs”?
The former is particularly common usage among journalists. In fact, the Associated Press Stylebook specifically recommends adding only an apostrophe if the word (any word) ends in s.
How about people saying “pacific” instead of “specific”? That drives me nuts, too.
It is funny how language can evolve, though. I’ve always noticed that the Jamaican accent sounds like it is twanged with Irish or Scottish elements. Sometimes I’ll hear an English accent and think of Southern black dialects. I have had conversations with Yankees and European foreigners and they will laugh at my particular pronounciation of words, when my ears are not even aware of how “different” I sound. Likewise, I will crack up listening to a Brit pronounce “raccoon” (they say RUH-coon), “trachea” (TRUH-kia), and “herb” (HERB).
No, no it doesn’t. Here’s the AP rules regarding apostrophes. I’m lazy, so I’ve quoted my own post from years back:
Fuck, that’s a new one on me. Does AP stand for “Apostrophisation Putzes” these days, or wot? (Lemme, see now… “the putz’ strange rules are astounding” - is that right?)