How has ask become arks

[onceamai]

AIBU to wonder why those younger than me no longer seem to say the word ask as it is written. How did it become "arks" and so easily adopted into the language?

I appreciate everything you said cory, but it's still annoying.

Do you find all dialectal variations equally annoying, Trillian, or only low status ones?

I find things annoying depending on if they are annoying.

I'm not objecting to people having accents, and I'm not saying that anyone should change their speech because of me, just that I find it annoying when people pronounce one or two words in a way that doesn't fit with the rest of their speech.

I've never heard it myself. I suppose it would be annoying if you thought it was 'put on' but as a natural part of speech it is exactly that.

I've always thought that judging the way other people speak and putting them into a social bracket is very old fashioned and the sort of thing my mother and her cronies (in their late seventies) enjoy chuntering about over tea and cake.

Sometimes strong regional dialects can be hard to understand but I think they should be celebrated because they are using words and phrases that might otherwise die out.

hmmm, black country lass here, and ARK means OUR-KID, as in you'd say:

'ALRIGHT ARK' = 'ALRIGHT OUR KID' = 'HELLO GOOD FRIEND/COUSIN/SIBLING!

Sorry for caps but dont know how to highlight/italic

I think it's preserved because it's a dialect marker - as a way of demonstrating a connection to a community. Don't think it denotes low status on its own (@cory).

Well, certain older forms of English have survived in the "Colonies" - that's just normal. It happened with "rooster" in America, and evidently with "arks" in the Caribbean. Similarly, more archaic forms have been preserved in Quebequois, for all "mainland" French has got the Academie Francaise looking after things!

Perhaps it is the colonial angle which has created the "class" connotations! Who wants to talk like a "provincial"/ Colonial, eh?!

To add to that, Grendel, Cory - it's known that speech shifts towards 'easier' (lazier?) strings of sounds. What's 'easier' will depend on the accent you speak in, but if you think about it, there's a reason we don't go round talking in tongue-twisters: they are hard to say! So we modify, and 'axe' becomes 'ask' becomes 'arks', and 'flutterbys' become 'butterflies' (I love that example).

You can try to stop it but you'll only get your feet wet telling the tide to turn!

LittleRed. Too true, too true.

Grendels - very very interesting.

I drop my T's when feeling partic tired and lazy and I like it.

Oh, I love a linguistic debate on a Friday am.

Flutterbys and butterflies are lovely.

I do have sympathy for those who are annoyed by language issues, though - as I get infuriated by 'uninterested' to mean 'disinterested', but we've debated that one at length before on here, and someone came up with a convincing argument for why it is perfectly justified.

Hmm. I think there's a real difference between the way you say a word, or the way you abbreviate it (and dropping letters when you speak is abbreviation, isn't it?), and actually not understanding the differences between words. I love the former, because it introduces yet more differences and nuances into the language, but the latter tends to make language more of a boring, blunt instrument. 'Disinterested' is a great word.

YY to LRD's theory - I drop into a very strong Nottingham accent when I'm feeling shy (amongst people I don't know or am trying to impress, unfortunately!!) - I mutter, and I drop my H's and do glottal stops all over the place.

I have recently noticed that I now start to adopt DH's annoying "f" instead of "th" something which I had never done in my life before.

Another Nottingham girl!

I don't have the accent as I only moved there when I was 6 and it never really stuck, but I always notice it so much when I go back. And I do have to catch myself from using 'mardy'.

you have to spread Mardy into the rest of the county - best word to discribe the action. southerners seem to say moody and it just doesn't work! moody means having changeable moods, it does not mean mardy! (like they heard it and remembered it wrong...)

My mum only has a Manchester accent for words and names that she's learnt since moving there - but for those, the Manchester accent is very pronounced, glottal stops and all. She'll do an entire sentence RP, but with one word with a Mancunian pronunciation. My favourite is that well known supermarket, Wai'rose.

Love the word 'mardy' too.

'Eh, she's a right mardy arse. Allus mithering.'

Just a point on Chaucer. He could get away with a huge amount of linguistic variation because he was writing well before there was any idea of standard spelling. A famous line from 'The Franklin's Tale' goes...

"But whan she saugh the grisly rokkes blake"
(But when she saw the grisly black rocks)

From that spelling, you might assume that a legitimate pronunciation of 'black' is 'blake' with a long 'a'... but who pronounces it like that today?

Grendel - tekks me back.

I have an Italian friend who does the same - her English accent is heavily weighted with Italian, and a lot of her words are RP, but with lovely strng Manc vowels! like she says Bucket and Brush with Brush in RP and Bucket in Mancunion!

because like, dat is how de bruvvers speak innit. And like, even doe I is like twelve and from da hood of hertforshire, me and my spars is talking like dat because we is bad. OK?

Can't stand arks or mardy but I don't think they're an indication of class more of regional or cultural background but both really grate on me anyway.

Chil, that's not correct. There was an idea of standard spelling, but it wasn't like our idea of standard spelling. So, Chaucer might spell a word one of two, or even three ways - but he'd never use a fourth spelling, if you see what I mean?

Grendel - mithering! Love it!

I do think 'mardy' captures something special - you're right nickel, it's not 'moody' at all. I've heard it suggested (purely as a suggestion, not an educated opinion), that the word might come from French/Anglo-Norman for 'bad' or 'spoiled' (in the sense of 'spoiled fruit', not a 'spoilt child').

yes- an edition of the OED I saw (a concise one) said that its root was from Mar.
jury's out though.
I think I also saw somewhere that it was from Old English, rather than latin, so it could have meant something much closer to the mood than the opinion of the observer of the child's upbringing.

Two words: Lauren Cooper.

SlightlyJaded.... Wouldn't it end with aaaalllllri/ innit?!

Aaaaalllriiiiiii I think must actually be correct way to spell it.