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[Trab]

While fascinating, and obviously 'correct', I hasten to point out that those using axe instead of ask generally (never to my knowledge) aren't scholars of ancient English tomes, and are not using it in order to show their knowledge base. To put it politely, they're just screwin' it up on their own initiative.

[DesDownunder]

While fascinating, and obviously 'correct', I hasten to point out that those using axe instead of ask generally (never to my knowledge) aren't scholars of ancient English tomes, and are not using it in order to show their knowledge base. To put it politely, they're just screwin' it up on their own initiative.

I Love it

Outstanding observation Trab!

[blue]

Just because....

Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay....

...And we wouldn't want to split the discussion, now would we?

Because, you know, an axe and all. (An awl? An auxiliary? An axillary?)

Sorry. Dreadfully sorry.

(I'm still at a loss on "esca-PAY." It isn't American. It isn't R.P. (British, International). It sure isn't French. The French word would be "un ?chapp?," which is not a chap or chappy or a guy in chaps, with or without holes where his derri?re should be post?rieur.............)

Why am I in lecture mode, again?

[colinian]

While fascinating, and obviously 'correct', I hasten to point out that those using axe instead of ask generally (never to my knowledge) aren't scholars of ancient English tomes, and are not using it in order to show their knowledge base. To put it politely, they're just screwin' it up on their own initiative.

Linguists are always more "forgiving" than English teachers. There's a difference between accepted use and argot, between how people speak and write inside a classroom, outside among their friends, at home with their families, at work with coworkers, with customers, with waitpersons, with figures of authority, for broadcast or publication, and so on. This is just one part of what makes language so interesting.

Another is that language is always changing, whether we like the changes or not. We can rant and rail about changes, but changes will happen regardless of whether we like them or not. One now accepted change I don't like is "anyways" -- ugh! But I've used it because it fit a character and the way I imagined he would speak.

When I think and read about language and how it works I find it amazing. As I read and listen to the English language in all of its infinite variants I wonder: How did we acquire language? How do we translate our thoughts into constructs of words and sentences? How do others understand those constructs? Yes, fascinating stuff!

Colin

[Bruin Fisher]

Hi, Jack...

I visited the Coleridge Museum in Nether Stowey a few weeks ago, and spotted a misprint on a big display on a wall there.

A quotation from 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', the bit where the Albatross is introduced, includes the line: 'Thorough the fog it came'.

Delighted with my perspicacity, I pointed out to the lady curator that it should, surely, read 'through the fog it came'. and she got quite excited - nobody else had noticed, and she would report it to her supervisor.

I'm now thoroughly (!) red-faced about the whole episode since I've discovered that an archaic meaning of the word thorough is the same as through, and Coleridge was deliberately using archaic terms to make the story sound older. It wasn't a mis-print, every edition of the poem I've found has the same spelling.

We still use the word 'thoroughfare' which incorporates 'thorough' with its archaic meaning.

[DesDownunder]

I'm now thoroughly (!) red-faced about the whole episode

It's okay Bruin, we won't tell any one, if you don't.

[Bruin Fisher]

It's okay Bruin, we won't tell any one, if you don't.

Thanks Des, I wouldn't want it to get out, like on the internet or something...

[colinian]

Thanks Des, I wouldn't want it to get out, like on the internet or something...

You know Bruin, if you googled "an archaic meaning of the word thorough" (with the quotes) It's possible that you might find your comment. Eventually everyone is quoted in Google, for good or for... well... something else.

Colin

[Bruin Fisher]

You know Bruin, if you googled "an archaic meaning of the word thorough" (with the quotes) It's possible that you might find your comment. Eventually everyone is quoted in Google, for good or for... well... something else.

Colin

Oh, my ears and whiskers! I'm famous!

How lovely to know that Google takes an interest in me - now whenever I'm down in the dumps and thinking nobody cares, I can just Google something I've written and know that I have a friend in Google. Aaaahh!

[blue]

Hahaha, good idea, Bruin. "Google: Warm and Fuzzy Edition." :D

thorough / through ... I used to know that, but forgot it. -- If I could remember all the stuff I used to know, like calc and trig.... oh well. (I do remember more calc and trig than I expected, despite not having used them since college.)

Language change happens. Or we'd still be speaking like Beowulf, Chaucer, or Shakespeare and King James.

Aroint thee, runyon!

Neat discussion. I think my inner language / English geek had a, um, well, I think he was really excited and happy, there, for a few minutes.

[Cole Parker]

I think having to read Chaucer and Beowulf is why I became an engineer!

Differential calculus was easier than that stuff. More comprehensible.

I think it should be illegal to torture naive young college students with aspiring hopes for the future with crap like that.

I wasn't much for Melville, either.

C

[Richard Norway]

I wasn't much for Melville, either.

C

Hey Cole. I think this Melville guy wrote something about my friend, Moby Clauson. He was a whale, I'll tell you.

*Okay Richard. Shut up. You're being bad.*

[Guest Fritz]

Now Cole, how can you dislike Melville? After all, he wrote a whale of a tale. Confidentially, I didn't like him either, but don't tell anyone. As for Beowulf, I need a better supply of mead before I take that on again. It's a shame you weren't there to edit it down to a more manageable size. However, I don't think even your editing could save Moby Dick.

[TracyMN]

Late as usual, but i've been coughing my lungs out. I don't care if it's Flu A, B or H1N1, since if you're going to live thorough it, you don't axe it's name.

This was delightfully informative, especially Bruin's "Delighted with my perspicacity" which a lovely man said I had or was once and when I looked it up I said "I knew he was a genius", but one

thought stuck in my mind throughout:

During those years we now refer to as Archaic, was school a requirement in any place for all

children between the ages of 5 and 16? If not, then all of the possibilities mentioned make sense to me for the times. But I would argue that those who have not had the opportunity to see the word "ask" in print and/or properly used in a sentence these days, are those the world has seen fit to ignore to the extent that they have no voice in it either, and when I hear such things I'm thinking it either intentional ignorance or disregard for appearing so. I'm inclined to give adolescents a bit of a break, seeing as they have that chemical imbalance thing going HEY HEY HEY and they forget to say Please and Thank You, too. Literacy--you got to wanna.

Language does change like you said Blue, but axe never was or will be ask. Hey Thou might be Hey You, but ridicalous was just a guy trying to get on my nerves. It worked, too. My Mother mispronounced words no matter how many times you corrected her (wasn't that her job?) and I honestly don't know what THAT was about.

OOPS, there goes my theory then. OK, here's an analogy that maybe is, maybe isn't:

When ever I see a couple of clean-cut to beat all clean-cut young men on bicycles heading my way who want to talk about religion, I feel no animosity whatsoever at them, they're young and they are not ambivalent--my question for the adults in their lives would be "Where can these boys go that Television hasn't?" At least give 'em a car for crying out loud.

Did I say "anyways" yet? And can I really google and get Bruin? He can tell you, I'll ask him before being tempted to "Google" which is my modern hated expression (Cole, don't even...) but if there's real people there I might do it for fun. What was wrong with axing each other anyway. You don't get responses like these from "sources", and no one leaves here without something they can use. I don't anyways. Kidding aside, thanks.

Hey, did any of this help?

Byeya,

Tracy