There are many detractors — despairing the condition of language and culture today — who blame African-Americans for mutilating that poor old word “ask.”
Indeed, during his talk radio show, conservative host Rush Limbaugh routinely (with an air of mockery) changes the pronunciation to “axe.” This is not surprising for a man who began his radio career after dropping out of college, and who was recently fired from working as a football commentator at ESPN for claiming that Donavan McNabb was given “extra credit” because of his race.
Perhaps Mr. Limbaugh should have stayed in school, at least until taking a course on the history of the English language. He might have learned that “axe” was one alternative form of “ask” — beginning in the eighth century — and was considered standard until around 1600.
Let us redeem him of this malapropism. Or, as Chaucer notes, in The Parson’s Tales, better let him “cometh for to axe [us] of mercy,” for the Bible (Coverdale’s 1535 translation) tells that one must only “Axe and it shall be.”
In any case, settlers brought this archaic form — which still exists in regional dialects of England — to the South and Midwest, where it is used today (by scholars and fools alike).
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; Mr. Limbaugh naturally plays it safe. His brash defiance of factual accuracy is admirable: “It has not been proven that nicotine is addictive, the same with cigarettes causing emphysema [and other diseases].”
He also possesses a near zen-like quality of perfect paradox; after railing that anyone caught with drugs must be convicted and “sent up,” he was caught lifting OxyContin from his maid and smuggling unlabeled bottles of Viagra after a vacation in the Dominican Republic.
Like so many of his brave generation, Mr. Limbaugh avoided being drafted to fight in Vietnam with claims of cysts on his buttocks. His early career was no less brave: he was terminated from several radio gigs for his bigoted political comments.
He later rose to national fame. Because his show was handed free to any station that would carry it, his voice is one of the most heard on AM radio. Clarence Thomas (Supreme Justice) has claimed that he listens to “Rush” when he works out.
A philosopher once noted that if we are truly loyal to a political cause, we must regard it with careful criticism. This ensures that rhetoric does not become doctrine; that the leaders of change do not become what they seek to replace.
Few embody these principles finer than Mr. Limbaugh, who — skeptical of President Obama’s ambitious healthcare plans — has made many wry observances (including a comparison between the project’s logo and the Nazi swastika).
His historical understanding is, however, not limited to insignia:
“Well, the Nazis were against big business…they were opposed to Jewish capitalism. They were insanely, irrationally against pollution…They were against cruelty and vivisection of animals, but in the radical sense of devaluing human life, they banned smoking. They were totally against that. They were for abortion and euthanasia of the undesirables, as we all know, and they were for cradle-to-grave nationalized healthcare.”
Perhaps fearing that this association was not evident enough, Mr. Limbaugh frequently turns to another standard enemy:
“[Van Jones is] an avowed communist and so forth. Obama’s mentor was an avowed communist, Bill Ayers…And then you’ve got State-Run Media, which refuses to report on any of this…If Obama is sounding like a god and a messiah during the campaign and somebody’s out there saying, ‘we’re dealing here with a hard-core leftist radical who wants to basically overthrow this country’s institutions,’ people don’t want to hear it.”
To better understand Mr. Limbaugh’s fear of Nazi-communism, let me finish with one final anecdote. During the 1960’s, a young student at Harvard spoke the following words to a gathering of parents and alumni:
“The streets of our country are in turmoil. The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might. And the republic is in danger. Yes! Danger from within and without. We need law and order! Without law and order our nation cannot survive.”
The ovation was prolonged. When the applause finally died, the student quietly told his listeners, “These words were spoken in 1932 by Adolph Hitler.
excellent article, james. i dug it very much.
I must admit that I was equally ignorant of the history of ask/axe. But several years ago I read the 19th century novel ” North and South” by Mrs Gaspel (spelling?), in which the speech of the factory workers included “axe” or “aks”.
The interesting thing about the Rush comments is that when he did this with the caller, Stacy ( who apparently is a regular caller), she was having none of it. Though she was otherwise in complete agreement with Rush, she told him to stop it. Obviously she thought it was racist. And he did stop, at least with her.