Don't Axe Me

Here I go out onto thin ice. I hope my friends will come to my rescue. I don't understand why America's educational system is concerned more about not hurting feelings, political correctness or whatever their agenda rather than teaching kids to speak in a way that will reflect their education and make them more employable.

Back when I used to hire people, I would immediately reject anyone who said "axe" instead of "ask." I figured if they didn't know this simple bit of standard English, that I didn't want them writing press releases, speeches and other things for clients that I'd then have to re-write. It's a matter of self-preservation and trying to do a good job in my job for my employer and clients.

I didn't know that many schools don't teach kids to say "ask" instead of "axe." In fact, I was utterly stunned last year when Lily's Language Arts teacher, who holds an advanced degree from Ivy League Columbia University, used "axe" herself instead of "ask." Somewhere along the lines, educators decided it didn't matter.

But it does! While academics and intellectuals might regard this as a cultural thing and not give it another thought, to poor dumb me it means "lack of knowledge of standard English" and is a red flag that can mislead an employer into thinking this person is not qualified for any job requiring standard English. Don't axe my why. I guess I'm the stupid one. I wouldn't hire a language arts teacher who said "axe" (though she was a good teacher otherwise, so it's a good thing I wasn't in charge), I wouldn't give an advanced degree in teaching to someone who didn't use standard English and if I were a teacher or speech pathologist I would kindly but persistently correct the child who is axing me questions. Do you want the kids to get good jobs or don't you?

I recently had a conversation with a retired speech pathologist who told me that it was against the policies of her district to correct "axe" as that was considered standard African-American English. She could only work on that mispronunciation if it were related to another speech problem. In non-hyphenated America, this is a tragedy.

I've heard that "axe" is an earlier version of "ask," in the way that English has evolved and is therefore legitimate. The same could be said of "ain't" but "ain't" has no friends.

By the way, I think for a post about grammar I need to get rid of some of these quotation marks after the first reference but I got a whole boxcar load of quotation marks on sale and I'm in a hurry.

Lily tells me that one of her friends who can't pronounce "ask" can say "task" and that this year's language arts teacher is working with that student to see if she can't make "ask" part of her everyday vocabulary.

For this child to use "ask" properly, she had to slow down and think through the pronunciation first.

I am more than sympathetic and am astonished, if this is a problem, that nobody told us that for some people "ask" is hard to say. I have my own pronunciation challenges. I cannot say "conscience" or "conscious" without having to stop and think through exactly what I'm doing. Otherwise my mouth will make a mess of it and say the wrong word. Fortunately, I rarely speak of my conscience (is that a good thing?) or worry about being conscious.

I feel for these children. But the truth is, how you say something is just as important as what you say.