The 'ax' versus 'ask' question

Few things stick out more in black American speech than the pronunciation of “ask” as “ax.” And when I say that it “sticks out,” I'm being polite.

Attitudes about Ebonics have evolved somewhat as hip-hop has become America's favorite music. Even the strictest grammarian would have to agree that Kanye West's “Gold Digger” in standard English wouldn't be worth hearing. And Americans from Jesse Pinkman in “Breaking Bad” to Key and Peele get that it's OK to speak “hood” when you're among friends.

But “ax” is a special case. It's often the first thing even black people bring up as an example of bad grammar.

As a black linguist, I have come to expect that, after any public talk I give on language, someone will ask: “What's with ‘ax'?”

One answer a linguist can give is to cite history, pointing out how, in Old English, the word for “ask” swung randomly between ascian and acsian. But that answer never satisfies the audience. Today, “ax” sounds ignorant. So why can't black people switch a couple of sounds around and stop saying it?

I want to try to answer that.

First, as English goes, “ax” is a perfectly normal thing to have happened to a word like “ask.” Take the word “fish.” It started as “fisk,” with the same -sk ending that “ask” has. Over time, in some places people started saying “fisk” as “fiks,” while in others they started saying “fisk” as “fish.” After a while, “fish” won out over “fiks.” The same thing happened with “mash.” It started as “mask.” Later some people were saying “maks” and others were saying “mash.” “Mash” won.

With “ask,” some people started saying “aks,” and some started saying “ash.” But this time, it wasn't “ash” that won out.

There is an element of chance in how words change over time, and we will never know why “aks” and “ash” lost out to “ask.” All we know is that the people whose English was designated the standard happened to be among those who said “ask” instead of “aks.”

Going forward, “aks” was used primarily by uneducated people, including indentured servants, whom black slaves in America worked alongside and learned English from. But we can't help thinking that standard English, even if arbitrary, should be standard. Here is where the linguist breaks out the word “identity.” The way people talk expresses their identity, we linguists say. Why not identify with proper language?

Here's my explanation.

The first thing to understand is that, for black people, “ax” has a different meaning than “ask.” “Ax” is a word indelibly associated not just with asking but with black people asking. That sentiment alone is powerful enough to cut across conscious decisions about what is standard or proper.

“Ax” is as integral a part of being a black American as are subtle aspects of carriage, demeanor, humor and religious practice. “Ax” is a gospel chord in the form of a word, a facet of black being — which is precisely why black people can both make fun of and also regularly use “ax,” even as college graduates. Yet nothing can stop people from hearing “ax” as illiterate.

I hope that my small contribution to the pro-axive literature might help some of us hear “ax” in a different way. The simple fact is that because “ax” is blackness, it has survived and will continue to.

John McWhorter teaches linguistics, American studies and Western civilization at Columbia University.