Ask, Axe?

[Salar]

i spoke to my friends mother in singapore today, she is one of the most respected linguisist's in the world (She is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Language & Literature, NUS, and the Deputy Director at the International Relations Office, NUS. She serves on several editorial boards, including The Annual Review of Applied Linguistics; Current Issues in Language Planning; Language Policy (Book Series); Language and Education; The International Journal of Multilingualism; Mulitilingualism and Linguistic Diversity; World Englishes, The Journal of Asian Englishes, and Asian Englishes Today (Book Series). She is also a Board Member of Times Media (Academic Publishing), and chairs the Language and Linguistics Cluster Committee and Series Ideas.)

When i told her about this discussion she said that evoloution of language is only evoloution when EVERYONE agrees upon the language change. Words like aks isn't accepted english and never will be simply because the people that use it generally don't have a college degree or have grown up in areas where the majority of the population is uneducated.

 

[Skillz]

I don't think that could b tru, cuz not everyone can vote for sumtin u kno? Like I said, wat bout changin a word by shortenin - even educated ppl do that.

Not hatin on wat tha woman says, but I think it's too loopholey of an argument, that's all.
Skillz

 

[Salar]

Well ask itself is a word that has been shortened. Acsian (sp?) is the old english word which underwent metaphesis and people started shortening the word and saying ask. But everybody started using it.

The same goes for him and her. It was incorrect english to say something like:
"Sharon went to the bar and they asked her to leave", if you said something like that, they would of asked "they told who to leave?"

The correct way was "Sharon went to the bar and they asked Sharon to leave". It was considered incorrect to say him/her/she/he. But languge just grew. How? Lingusists realised that people were saying his/her/she/he alot instead of repeating the names. So they made the changes accordingly.

Now why can't aks be part of such a change?
Well it's simple; the people that say aks aren't adequately educated or grew up in a neighbourhood where the general population is uneducated.

 

[Skillz]

Tha key word is "general". This would b stereotypin. But like I said, if we're gonna stereotype, in general, linguists say there is no such thing as bad grammar, except for that exception u spoke of.

Skillz

 

[Duke]

Now why can't aks be part of such a change?
Well it's simple; the people that say aks aren't adequately educated or grew up in a neighbourhood where the general population is uneducated.

That means that whether a new word or way to make a sentence gets accepted or not, depends on the educational level of the persons that said. That just sounds weird.

What about the people that said "her/him/it" instead of "Sharon/Mike/dog"? Weren't they poor?

It just sounds odd and "loopholey" to me as well.

I do agree that a word like "aks" will never be or should be accepted in the "official form" of the language, but i'm not quite sure why i think that. Perhaps because saying "aks" for "ask" simply makes no sense at all?

I don't know. Agree with the rest though.

 

[Salar]

Ok the his her it grew out of the old english.

Ok, think of it this way. Genetic evolution, we all started as apes and we became humans. It was a long process but it happened. The same is for language. It evolves slowly (though in past few hundred years it has changed dramatically).
Now just like human evolution there are always deformities that seem abnormal and sort of happen throughout time. The person with 12 toes, the person with 3 eyes, whatever. This doesn't mean that that was a result of evolution. Now the same goes for language. People that say aks are the deformed people in genetic evolution. They are an exceptional few etc.

Sorry, bad example but i hope some sense can be made from it.

 

[Duke]

lol! @ that analogy. I got it, but it still sounds odd to me

 

[Salar]

i know it was terrible but with the lack of sleep that's the best i could come up with.
But you get me!