There was a guy I knew when I lived up in Virginia. 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. 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. 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.
Anyway for a while, the epidemic of people using the word axe kind of vanished from my radar. 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. 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.
So naturally, my inquiring assumption is that the verb “ask” has an Ebonic counterpart in the word “axe.” Despite the fact that the word “axe” is a noun, meaning a well known tool and/or weapon.
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. 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. And besides, my old acquaintance from the Virgin Islands back in Virginia was kind of ghetto at times to be perfectly honest.
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. There would be people with college degrees hanging on their office walls. People who bragged about living in affluent neighborhoods, and the level of education their kids were getting at some prestigious private school.
People who spoke normal, well-mannered, well-enunciated, proper English.
Except when it came to using the word “ask.” They wanted to “axe” me, or anyone else, questions when they had questions to axe. It’s one of the most unnerving things to get from another person. Like we’re having a perfectly normal conversation, and I say something that puzzles them. And then it’s like “hold on for a moment, I cannot comprehend the behavioral disposition you described back there. May I axe you to clarify your statement, good sir?“
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.”
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.” 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. 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. 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.
