Axe Can You Say That Again

Geoffrey Chaucer, the "Male parent of English language Literature," said "ax." UK Government Art Collection, artist unknown

Language and pronunciation are far from immutable. Accents and regionalisms can propose a great bargain near where someone is from—the Dictionary of American Regional English catalogs the vast smattering of linguistic ticks that permeate American speech. There are some linguistic divides, though, that seem to stand out above the residual: saying popular versus soda, or pronouncing "ask" as "ax." But while your name for fizzy drinks can say something most your geography, the ask/ax divide is laden with boosted cultural luggage.

NPR'due south All Things Considered explored the circuitous social stigma around "enquire". One role jumped out, though: the pronunciation of "ax" has a long—very long—history.

"The people who apply the ax pronunciation are using the pronunciation that has been handed downward, in an unbroken form, for a thousand years," says Jesse Shiedlower from the American Dialect Society to NPR.

"It is not a new thing; it is not a mistake," he says. "It is a regular feature of English."

Sheidlower says you can trace "ax" back to the eighth century. The pronunciation derives from the Old English verb "acsian." Chaucer used "ax." Information technology's in the first complete English language translation of the Bible (the Coverdale Bible): " 'Axe and it shall be given.'

As we've explored previously, the English accent that dominated at the fourth dimension of Shakespeare have largely disappeared, along with the pronunciations in which the bard'due south tales were meant to be read. The changes in pitch and stress that come to ascertain modern accents have broken some of Shakespeare's puns, and left his jokes without a punchline.

Y'all can listen to the whole NPR story:

Absurd Finds Cultural Preservation

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Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-have-been-saying-ax-instead-ask-1200-years-180949663/