Why can't educated Americans,,spell or Speak?

Question

You ask a question,, not AXE IT ! What the hell is that?

Answer 1

You are making an incorrect generalization about this word. MOST Americans spell and pronounce it as "ask" In fact, in ALL types of Standard English "aks(ed)" is now incorrect.

BUT this pronouncation is NOT the result of an ignorant mistake.. and it's origin is NOT in America. Rather, it is simply a dialectal variation within English. In fact, BOTH "aks" and "ask" are found in Old English and in the Middle English writing of Chaucer.

In 17th century England, "aks" was the standard in one of the four major British dialects of the early Amercan settlers.

"From 1642-1675 the Royalists, also called Cavaliers, fled from the south and southwest England with their indentured servants and settled in Virginia when the English Civil War against Charles I began. They brought with them their south England drawl (a drawing out of the vowels); they also brought such phrases as aksed (instead of asked), and ain't (instead of isn't). Royalists later settled the Carolinas as well. Southern English speech laid the foundation for the development of American Tidewater speech, or Coastal Southern English."

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/AmericanDialects.htm

Many associate this pronounciation with certain black dialects. This is not surprising. Since it was the group mentioned above that held most of the black slaves, their dialect --including "aks"-- is the source of that pronunciation among certain parts of the black population today.

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By the way, this sort of re-ordering of the sounds of a word --called "metathesis"-- is very common in language. It may come about by confusion, but often it happens simply because the expected form is more difficult to pronounce. In some cases the change is considered ignorant or at least non-standard, in other instances it becomes the (or a) ACCEPTED pronounciation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics)

It is by this process of metathesis that Old English "brid", "thridde" (same order as "three") became "bird", "third" and "horse".
http://sps.k12.mo.us/khs/linguistics/lingtrms.htm#M

Answer 2

They aren't educated. Those that are don't speak that way. Then you have to wonder, are they Americans? And those that axe questions only AXE where their welfare check is because they didn't finish school. Besides, we now have shows on tv, especially cartoons, that focus on teaching Spanish. Why not shows to teach those that can't speak English?

Answer 3

confident I stay in Australia, yet my cousin is going to a international college the place they talk English, no longer chinese language. although there are some strange stuff she says. Like 'chicken nuggets' is stated chicken nug-get yet she says chicken noo-get.

Answer 4

The things that are happening is that the more that americans us e the internet , the more that they are lacking on correct spelling
people don't like to use SPELL CHEK

qwEr
Asdf
zXc


Well you can now see a typo on fast typing ...
I blame it on IM"S.. SLANGS WHICH I DETEST!...
I dont know.. its all on SPELL CHECK AND people are lazy !

Answer 5

Why do you put two commas where a comma isn't needed at all? And why capitalize speak? Are you an educated American?

Answer 6

Well i wouldn't exactly call anyone who cant spell or speak correctly "educated".

Answer 7

Wow, I have never really thought about this, But my guess is that they are smart enough that is doesn't really become relevant that you are saying a simple word incorrectly. It's pretty funny if you really think about it.

Answer 8

Sloppy linguistics, more than anything else

Answer 9

What makes you think they are educated?

Answer 10

its an accent if they are saying it...if not then its just laziness in typing. like me and my caps at the begining of sentences......