BS: Language Pet Peeves part II

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Mar 24 - 08:10 AM

There are three sounds in both "ask" and "ax."

So it isn't laziness. It's a reversal of the order of the sounds. This is called "metathesis."

Oxford shows similar forms in use since Old English (before 900 AD). Here's a good example from the Coverdale Bible of 1535:

"Axe and it shall be given you."

(The first published English translation of the Old and New Testaments, predecessor of King James Version.)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 22 Mar 24 - 01:27 PM

"Lazy American mouths" continue pronunciations that were in use long before English-speakers came to 'America'. What the heck is wrong with them?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Mar 24 - 02:38 PM

In the U.S. "ax" (for ask) has become a part of the language for African-Americans, nothing to do with laziness.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Mar 24 - 03:49 PM

Interestingly, Oxford offers no examples, ever, of "ask" being used for "ax."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 22 Mar 24 - 04:30 PM

AKS.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/12074/why-is-ask-sometimes-pronounced-aks

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Mar 24 - 05:05 PM

Interesting to read that "aks" was "down to 1600 the regular literary form."

So according to those of a mightily prescriptive bent, "aks" should be correct, and "ask" is an illiterate variant.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Mar 24 - 05:33 PM

"Trump frustrated as bond deadline nears and key bacteria identified in colon cancer cases."

There's now a name for these syntactically ambiguous sentences. They're called "crash blossoms."

Why? According to Merriam-Webster:

"While crash blossoms themselves are as old as newspapers, the term dates back to 2009, when editor Mike O'Connell saw an ambiguous headline that appeared in the newspaper Japan Today— 'Violinist Linked to JAL Crash Blossoms' —and wondered in the Testy Copy Editors forum, 'What's a crash blossom?'"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Mar 24 - 03:33 PM

I shall uae the term crash blossom going forward.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Thompson
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 04:53 AM

Has anyone brought up* the overuse of the term "key"? I can see why newspapers use it instead of "vital" in headlines (shortage-of-ink error), but I find use of it in speech to be unforgivably jarring, especially when overuse makes it a stand-in for "important", "noteworthy" or "interesting". There's so many "key" issues these days that there's no room in the door for anything else but locks.

"Key" is the 2024 equivalent of the 1960s "top" - everyone was a top scientist, a top politician, etc - until some comedian brought out a book called How to be Top, when it gradually faded away.

Words as analogies have these fashions. A few years ago "relish" was the trend, and it really annoyed me.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 05:36 AM

Talking of fashions in language (and my gripe is about pronunciation rather than actual vocabulary), am I the only one of our UK-contingent who has noticed the current fashion for pronouncing 'st' as 'sht' - so 'student' becomes 'shtudent', or 'street' becomes 'shtreet'? I've recently heard 'superstore' pronounced 'supershtore', amongst many annoying others.

It seems to be a BBC-driven phenomenon - the first offender I noticed indulging in this verbal mangling was that Richie character who presents the traffic bulletins (he also pronounces 'bus' as 'buzz' but, having worked with a guy from Dudley for a number of years, I'm used to that one). Unfortunately, 'sht' seems to have become the widely accepted pronunciation and I'm probably just a moaning old wrinkly, but it really boils my piss!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 05:56 AM

pronouncing 'st' as 'sht'

Sean Connery was the first one I noticed doing
it. Other than him, I can't say that I've noticed it much.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 07:11 AM

You need to listen to BBC Radio 2 Doug. They’re all doing it on there, and it’s spilling over to BBC TV Channels too.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 07:24 AM

If I listen to the radio at all, which I rarely do, then it's generally Radio 4. There is far more in the 'cheery' chat in between the music, on Radio 2, to annoy me, than the way they pronounce "st"/"sht".

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Mar 24 - 07:50 AM

When I was in Edinburgh a dozen years ago, I heard it a lot.

Listen closely to "Dr. No," etc., and you'll hear Sean Connery saying it regularly.

In my experience, it isn't as, er, "pronounced" as strongly as the letters "sh" might suggest.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 10:37 AM

I haven't noticed Sht for St, but in Ireland I heard Chewsday, which comes after Monday, Chune, which you sing, and Jew, which forms droplets on grass in the early morning...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 10:42 AM

> a book called How to be Top

There was a similar fashion for using "rules OK" in headlines (usually in the Sun iirc), which only died the death once some comedian or other pushed out "Dyslexia lures KO". They'd never get away with that death-stroke these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Mar 24 - 10:57 AM

Heard about "Travel Reshtrictions" this morning from the BBC Radio 2 Traffic Nincompoop. WTAF?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Apr 24 - 10:59 AM

I keep reading about that hospital destroyed "after a 2-week raid" - isn't a raid a quick action? Somehow, if it lasted weeks, it wasn't a raid, to me. Attack, onslaught, not siege which lasts but you aren't in the place you are besieging, so, what? I don't think raid is the mot juste, here.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: leeneia
Date: 01 Apr 24 - 09:09 PM

"ax" (for ask) has become a part of the language for African-Americans, nothing to do with laziness.

Nah, I have heard white people from the south say ax. One of them was my own sister-in-law.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Apr 24 - 04:05 PM

I looked it up. A raid is "sudden" so no, it can't last weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 04 Apr 24 - 11:20 AM

Heard on local radio this morning: "It is almost impossible to understate his contribution to the world of comedy" ......

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 04 Apr 24 - 02:01 PM

Compare G. W. Bush's "misunderestimate."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Apr 24 - 08:30 PM

What about the stupidity of the American people?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 24 May 24 - 02:26 PM

"Visible rocks and sandbars can be seen in the river .... "

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 May 24 - 10:14 PM

I somewhere, somehow acquired the notion that "fuzz" for the police arose as a sarcastic diminutive for "whiskers" and alluded to "Mr Whiskers," slang for Uncle Sam. Unlikelier things have turned out to be true.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 May 24 - 10:23 PM

It is far too late to protest, but I will not use "stomach" to mean belly, which (IIRC) Fowler condemned as genteelism. When I was in high school, I had a teacher who, when he was in high school, had a teacher who said "The stomach is an internal organ. You can no more lie on your stomach than you can lie on your liver".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 25 May 24 - 02:46 AM

I used to think "solar plexus" was a euphemism for the victim's, er, naughty bits.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 May 24 - 04:02 AM

..... I will not use "stomach" to mean belly, which (IIRC) Fowler condemned as genteelism.

The alternative is "abdomen".

DC