![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/axeing.jpg\")
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There was a guy I knew when I lived up in Virginia.\u00a0 He was the first guy I ever met that routinely used the phrase “axe” when he was obviously trying to say “ask.” And I’d routinely call him out on it, and blurt out “AXE” whenever he said it.\u00a0 Or whenever I’d have a query for him, I’d say, “let me AXE you something,” putting an excessive amount of emphasis on the axe part.\u00a0 Although if you saw the guy, you’d think black guy, but in truth, he was from the Virgin Islands, if that makes any difference.<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway for a while, the epidemic of people using the word axe kind of vanished from my radar.\u00a0 Either I wasn’t noticing it around me, or I just wasn’t around enough inquiring people to put myself in scenarios where questions were to be axed.\u00a0 But at least over the span of the last few years, I have noticed that people have been using the word “axe” in place of “ask” a lot more frequently, and I can’t help but notice that they’re all black.<\/span><\/p>\n So naturally, my inquiring assumption is that the verb “ask” has an Ebonic counterpart in the word “axe.”\u00a0 Despite the fact that the word “axe” is a noun, meaning a well known tool and\/or weapon.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n At first, I thought the use of the word axe as a verb was limited to those that could be described as more “urban,” or those more well-versed in Ebonics seeing as how it would be times when I would be waiting at the Comcast store, or the ghetto Walmarts where I’d hear people “wanting to axe a manager,” or something along those lines.\u00a0 Despite the fact that I too would like to axe someone after waiting in excessively long lines too, contextually I think these people want to ask questions alternatively.\u00a0 And besides, my old acquaintance from the Virgin Islands back in Virginia was kind of ghetto at times to be perfectly honest.<\/span><\/p>\n But then I came to notice that the verb axe wasn’t necessarily limited to those from the hood, when I started working in more corporate environments.\u00a0 There would be people with college degrees hanging on their office walls.\u00a0 People who bragged about living in affluent neighborhoods, and the level of education their kids were getting at some prestigious private school.<\/span><\/p>\n People who spoke normal, well-mannered, well-enunciated, proper English.<\/span><\/p>\n Except when it came to using the word “ask.”\u00a0 They wanted to “axe” me, or anyone else, questions when they had questions to axe.\u00a0 It’s one of the most unnerving things to get from another person.\u00a0 Like we’re having a perfectly normal conversation, and I say something that puzzles them.\u00a0 And then it’s like “hold on for a moment, I cannot comprehend the behavioral disposition you described back there.\u00a0 May I\u00a0axe\u00a0<\/strong>you to clarify your statement, good sir?<\/em>“<\/span><\/p>\n Rich people, poor people, men, women, straight, gay; as long as they black, just about every one of them uses the word “axe” instead of “ask.”<\/span><\/p>\n I just don’t get this … this thing, about hijacking a word, as simple and innocuous as the word “ask,” and replacing it with the word “axe.”\u00a0 When I first heard it, it sounded very natural, as if were taught that way, and the people were saying it as if they believed they were saying it right throughout their entire lives.\u00a0 But these days, in so many cases it sounds so forced, as if people have to remind themselves to use “axe” instead of “ask” as their flow of speech were approaching the point of use.\u00a0 Somewhere along the line, it’s like an entire community decided that the word should become theirs, and regardless of the fact that it comes out sounding phony and forced, the questions must still be axed.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There was a guy I knew when I lived up in Virginia.\u00a0 He was the first guy I ever met that routinely used the phrase “axe” when he was obviously trying to say “ask.” And I’d routinely call him out on it, and blurt out “AXE” whenever he said it.\u00a0 Or whenever I’d have a … Continue reading Axing Questions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83,15,49],"class_list":["post-34812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-observations","tag-og","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34814,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34812\/revisions\/34814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}