'ask' v 'aks' - any reason?

[nunheadmum]

Is there any phonic reason why kids round here say 'aks' rather than ask? My 6 year old is saying it even though neither myself nor her dad do and most of the kids she's friends with have parents who don't say it. I just tried to tackle her on it (gently as I would other grammatical or word issues at that age) but she honestly couldn't hear the difference between the two and knew exactly how to spell the word.

As I'm not from these parts - I probably have plenty of my own coloquialisms - it just REALLY grates on me. Does it come out in the wash later on? Can you do anything to fight it?

[eco79]

This grated me for a while as well. I teach in a secondary school were 'aks' is standard chat.

So then, as explained to me by a parent, it's roots are in the way afro-carribean people learnt English. It was easier to say 'aks' in some particular language transitions and so people did. Now passed down through generations, it's becoming part of speech for all London teenagers.

[Curmudgeon]

Well that's new. I have not heard any primary children using aks. And there is only 2 years difference between my youngest and yours.

It is prevalent in Afro-Caribbean communities yes but is also a teenage affectation

Just don't allow it, I have never allowed glottal stops nor 'haitch' and my children know to speak properly when I'm around.

[nunheadmum]

But what got me is that my daughter couldn't even make out a difference between what she was saying and the correct way. (She's otherwise very good with her phonics and working out sounds.) And she knew how to spell it - even though she was saying it wrong. It certainly isn't a conscious decision to say it that way on her part.

She may have heard it from the workers at her nursery (who are Afro-Carribean) but was only there 3 days a week so got more input from us than them and we never use it. And while some of the kids in her class may use it, I've seldom if ever heard it from the parents I speak to, whose kids make up the majority of her friends.

It just made me wonder if there was any known reason as to how kids process the sounds or something like that. I don't want to dwell on it too much if it's one of those known steps that they make (like writing backwards etc).

It's not so much that I don't want her to use it - I appreciate the pressures to fit in etc - but I do want her to appreciate the difference and that there are times when it's not appropriate to speak that way.

[EDmummy]

So wouldn't worry at this age! Correct when she says it by repeating what she has said correctly but without it being obvious that you are correcting or pointing out her mistake. Making an issue out of it could have the opposite affect!

[alice]

isn't it more like 'arks' ?

language evolves

[Mrs TP]

Crisps and crips is another one.

If it is your own true accent / dialect then fine but copying it drives me up the wall.

[katgod]

Yes is arks, we had it at nursery, gently corrected, now stopped. 'like' is similarly being gently stopped. Too young to be a teenage affectation, just a way of speaking I don't want my children to adopt.

[toomuchchocolate]

.

[Mens]

loool, this thread has had me in stitches! I can't stand 'aks' and 'crips', didn't know it bothered anyone else. I was in such a bad mood ten minutes ago (with cranky kids off school and a baby who's turned into a feeding machine)...

[civilservant]

I've had to correct both written and spoken use of 'of' for 'have', for example as in 'would of' instead of 'would have'. It comes from school and peer-group usage. I've also noticed a lot of posters on EDF making the same mistake.

Lots of kids of all colours and classes use 'street' and lots of teenage boys, of all colours and classes, 'jail it' with their trousers hanging low under their bums.

Goodness knows what teenage girls do, no doubt I'll find out soon enough... I couldn't help noticing when the teenage daughter of friends fell over while bouncing on a trampoline that she had no knickers on...

[eco79]

However, give teenagers credit. There's some excellent, well thought out, slang being used. All things rubbish are 'next', as in during an interview, if you're rubbish they would shout next. This translates as 'some next lesson'.

'Onions' was probably my favourite. Why would you call someone 'onions'? Because their face made me cry. It took all my will power to stifle that giggle.

[civilservant]

Agree that a lot of it is very inventive, but I do wish they (teenagers) would be a little more discriminating with what they do take on board.

Speaking about 'jailing it', I saw a teenage boy shuffling along half bent over down the street and felt really sorry for him and his handicap. Until I realised that his belt was around the top of his thighs and that painful shuffle was the only way that he could keep his trousers on and walk at the same time!

Here's one man's view on 'saggy pants' -

[eco79]

Busting low batties...

[dulwichgirl2]

Toomuchchocolate - I'd raise that as an issue. Those are basic mistakes and you will be doing the individual a favour in life and career terms if he/she can sort it out.

Tempted to point out the grammar mistakes on this thread alone but am afraid of my own subsequent ones!

[Mrs TP]

I had an English teacher who got so fed up she made us write out the incorrect verb 'to of' - 'I of, you of, he / she ofs, I ofed' and so on to whatever tense 'I would of' is and then the correct 'to have'.

A great lesson that has stuck with me since.

In our house it is the wars of the northern v southern vowel sounds. Being a northerner I am with the harsh vowels especially A and Mr TP adds an r to all his A words, e.g. bath v barth. I think the southern vowel sound is also why aks is actually arks.

[Carbonara]

'aks' is well established in our primary school and has been for the last 4 years to my certain knowledge, why wouldn't it? My child picked up 'aks' and 'haitch' from nursery workers, went to school with children whose parents and grandparents say 'aks' and 'haitch', it filters in. As doubtless other language filters out and dilutes what were regional accents or dialects.

Interestingly none of the children I know who say 'aks' write it like that, they write 'ask'.

I am relaxed about it, as long as my children know the corrct word and can write it correctly. They are being brought up in S London, and pick up S London habits. If we lived in Yorkshire they would be picking up something else.

[katgod]

I think there is a lot of snobbery about London accents that does not necessarily exist with other regional accents. Dropping aitches, arks, fanks for thanks - these are things I would prefer my children not to do because they will be judged by how they speak. A Yorkshire accent if you are from Yorkshire is fine, but not everyone there sounds like someone from Last of the Summer Wine. And not everyone in London needs to sound cockney/Jamaican. But I think I might be over sensitive because my parents were so obsessed with me not sounding what they considered to be 'common'.

[Saffron]

I like a regional accent of any variety, but I don't like bad diction or grammar. And the two are definitely not mutually inclusive. I think Dolly Parton has a gorgeous example of a thick regional accent, with impeccable diction and grammar. Children can have beautiful accents of any variety and still manage good diction and grammar.

Nunheadmum, I get what you're saying about your daughter appearing not to understand the spoken difference between the sound of 'ask' and 'aks'. I would say it's down to her young age. I agree with others who suggest always gently correcting her. If it really bothers you (yes, it would bother me too!), maybe you can make a game of trying to get it right? Star charts? Work phonetically at each letter in sequence? ...but only if your daughter likes that sort of thing, otherwise it could backfire. Then she'll start saying it to annoy you. :o xx

[DiGio]

I am the foreigner and it strikes me how native speakers speak. If in language schools we were taught that certain verbs cannot be used in gerund form, then in the newspapers, adverts, friends, neighbours, TV presenters etc, my work's employee communication emails I see and hear "loving", "wanting", "needing". And this is spoken and written by those who consider themselves "white English from upper class" - or is it also some kind of a local dialect?

[Carbonara]

The 'I am wanting / needing / loving' etc is, I think American, and made popular here by the Macdonalds ad ;'I'm lovin' it'.

It is horrible, I agree.

I am more intolerant of TV-culture Americanisms than changes to the language that have come as a result of real people forming new communities together.

[Saffron]

Carbonara Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The 'I am wanting / needing / loving' etc...

It's considered idiomatic use: Generally fine for informal spoken language, but don't use it for formal written written.

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/im-loving-it-grammar.aspx

[Carbonara]

I don't use it at all!

[Saffron]

I wasn't suggesting that you do. It was more a general observation. ;-)

Back to the subject of children and language... I find it remarkable that and intriuguing that children can be taught the best spoken English by their parents but still end up with the dialect of their peers. Take DH for example. It's Queen's English at his school-teacher mum's home, while "down the pub" he turns into a "Souf London" lad. Hillarious!

[Inkmaiden]

School slang can be so minutely localised. I was most amused when a little girl I know moved from a school in East Dulwich to a school in Honor Oak and within a couple of weeks was ending every sentence with "isn't it" instead of "innit".