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I just found this thread so I'll just comment here instead of quoting.
#1 This bothers me a great deal.
#2 I also live in Milwaukee and a lot of the black folks here say that. Even the ones who are normally more well spoken. It sounds horrible and I cringe inside every time I hear someone say it, especially after I have listened to them speak intelligently on a topic with no speaking errors thus far.
#3 It's not a racial thread and it doesn't mean anyone is racist for posting it or posting a response. It's a fact, people speak this way, and it sounds ignorant. Would it be racist if I (white) posted something about how hillbillies (who are also generally white) slaughter the English language? I bet not.
#4 It's not an "accent." It's improper English. It's not acceptable.
#5 Being able to spell "ask" and yet pronouncing it "ax" is an astounding display of ignorance, so the whole "as long as they know how to spell it" argument doesn't really hold water with me. It sounds bad, and it makes me believe the people who say it are ignorant. I think most people agree with this.
So while I may say "y'all" and other southern slang terms, I can write a five page grammatically correct essay about why the pilgrims did better than the Jamestown settlement in Virginia.
"Y'all" actually is a word. It's a contraction. "Ax" is not a word, unless you're talking about literally an ax, as in the noun. "Ax" is not a verb, and it will never be in a dictionary as such.
Why do so many people fixate on the sociocultural dialect differences for African Americans yet ignore them with other groups?
Some African Americans have a distinction in speech pattern in which there is a phonological inversion (ie ask becomes aks) and /th/ is replaced with /f/ (ie bathtub becomes baftub) In the Hispanic community, some will pronounce words ending -ing with a -jing (ie lying becomes lyjing) or there is the addition of /e/ in front of /s/ words for native Spanish speakers (ie school becomes eschool) With many Asian communities there is a tendency to replace /r/ with /l/ (ie rise becomes lize) and there can also be a tendency to delete the final consonant in words (ie step becomes ste or lid becomes li)
There are numerous articulatory and phonological "disorders" or difference that exist for each ethnic group (not to mention the ones that exist for Whites based upon regional dialects) yet somehow Blacks are the only ones with the "problem"
Um, no. If someone truly has a problem saying a word, like they invert the K and S, fine. But you know darn well that what you're suggesting is BS for 99% of the black population. They all get it from one another, it's not like they can't read or they all have speech difficulties.
Hispanics say things wrong b/c the Spanish language influences their reading of English. The thing with putting an E in front of things beginning with S is b/c that's how it works in Spanish, for example, "school" is "escuela" so it makes at least some sense that they would translate that into their speech in English also.
East Asians, I think, cannot literally pronounce their Rs, or is it their Ls? That's a physical problem, not a cognitive one.
So unless you are saying that everyone in the above scenarios has a learning problem, I say you are full of crap and just making excuses for ignorance. The people who speak OTHER LANGUAGES have more of an excuse when English is their second language. Black people don't have another language. Some may have legit problems with learning or speaking properly, but you are blowing it up into something it is not and acting like EVERY black person who says "ax" has a valid reason for pronouncing it that way.
"Y'all" actually is a word. It's a contraction. "Ax" is not a word, unless you're talking about literally an ax, as in the noun. "Ax" is not a verb, and it will never be in a dictionary as such.
Y'all is NOT Standard American English (ie not proper English)
And I cringe when I hear anyone say "y'all" because it sounds uneducated to my Standard American English ears.
This is true, growing up in LA, many Mexian Americans do have an odd and unique inflection in many words. A good friend of mine, (highly educated Social Worker) says peeksa for pizza, lol. But she's an isolated incident whereas Ax seems more prevalent.
I've noticed that some of the people at work from Puerto Rico, or whose parents were from Puerto Rico, seem to have some trouble with certain words that contain consonants next to each other. A-ministration for Administration, for example.
Um, no. If someone truly has a problem saying a word, like they invert the K and S, fine. But you know darn well that what you're suggesting is BS for 99% of the black population. They all get it from one another, it's not like they can't read or they all have speech difficulties.
Hispanics say things wrong b/c the Spanish language influences their reading of English. The thing with putting an E in front of things beginning with S is b/c that's how it works in Spanish, for example, "school" is "escuela" so it makes at least some sense that they would translate that into their speech in English also.
East Asians, I think, cannot literally pronounce their Rs, or is it their Ls? That's a physical problem, not a cognitive one.
So unless you are saying that everyone in the above scenarios has a learning problem, I say you are full of crap and just making excuses for ignorance. The people who speak OTHER LANGUAGES have more of an excuse when English is their second language. Black people don't have another language. Some may have legit problems with learning or speaking properly, but you are blowing it up into something it is not and acting like EVERY black person who says "ax" has a valid reason for pronouncing it that way.
You are WRONG.
I am working on a Master's in Speech Language Pathology so I am quite certain that my explanation is more accurate than your anecdotal inferences. But thank you for sharing.
Last edited by calipoppy; 06-11-2011 at 01:17 PM..
Reason: typo!!
I can't stand when people talk like that, even some white people who grow up in mostly black areas do it. Sometimes when black people speak proper english then they are made fun of for "trying to be white". Some of them talk proper in a professional setting but once they are off work then they go back to speaking "ebonics".
Anyone who makes excuses for it is just BSing.
LOL, I knew a white woman who grew up in Paterson, NJ, in a mostly-black neighborhood. When my daughter was a baby, she advised me to buy "Erf's Best" baby food.
The switch between "ask" and "aks" goes back to merrie olde England. I remember reading a reprint of a document where "ask" was actually spelled "ax", the way that the writer apparently pronounced it. Chaucer uses "axen" in the 1300's. The original root words were ascian or axian, and both pronounciations were used at the same time.
According to this article, in the early years of this country, "aks" was most predominant in New England, then lost its usage there but increased in the South.
1) I have no problem with anyone stating that there should be a greater emphasis on the usage of Standard American English amongst ALL Americans.
2) I am not denying the existence and usage of AAVE (African American Vernacular English) amongst some Black Americans (not all, not even a majority)
3) I am stating, based upon fact, that deviations from Standard American English exist amongst all ethnocultural groups and these should be targeted for correction, as well.
"But the English language had deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valley girl, inner-city slang and various grunts. Joe was able to understand them but when he spoke in an ordinary voice he sounded pompous and faggy to them."
~ Idiocracy.
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