‘Ax’ vs ‘Ask’: Y’all Been Wrong This Whole Time

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Joining me now is author and political commentator Shemica Michelle. Shemica Michelle. Shemica Michelle. Shemica Michelle.

[00:00:08]When God looked at man, he said, "It's not good for man to be alone." He gave him a woman. He didn't give him a village. He didn't give him the community. He said, "Be fruitful and multiply to this man and this woman."

[00:00:21]So, it's supposed to be God, husband, wife. If you ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU'VE ALWAYS DONE, you will always get what you've always done.

[00:00:39]One that April with his shy sortter, the dro of March hath peried to the roar, and bothered every vine in Switch Leur of which fu in gender is the floor.

[00:00:55]One Zephilus ech with his sweet breath in spirit hath in every halt and hath the tendra crop.

[00:01:03]And the younger hath in the ram his halva curs and smal melodia that sl with open so inashes then lung and folk to go on pilgrimes and palmer's photos stranger to fairway cool thin Sunday Londes and specially from every sheer's ender of England to contemporary thy wender the holy blissful martyr for toka that him hath halpen one that thy was ah wow cth in Sandreandis happy Tuesday welcome to shaking ing my head with Shmik Michelle. I am your host, Shemik Michelle. And this is a popular topic. Although people will act like, "Oh, you know, I've never said that."

[00:02:14]I've seen it all over social media. Why can't black people say ask? You know, and it's always a bunch of comments and it's so funny and you know, it's all it's just it's been the topic for a while. Once it came to my attention, I noticed it. So, a few years ago, I was on Cut the Bull podcast. I actually had never even noticed it right until it was brought to my attention that a lot of black people really it's a lot of people but you know we make it a black thing so we're going to keep it a black thing. A lot of black people say asks instead of ask. Right?

[00:03:07]And so there's this idea that black people are stupid or dumb or ignorant.

[00:03:14]And people can tell whether you're stupid, dumb, or ignorant by whether or not you say ask or ask.

[00:03:24]So because that was brought to my attention some years ago when I did the song Reclaim the Rainbow. Now, I'm normally known as like one take Jake, right? I'm gonna get this thing done in one take because the more I think about it, it's like not really authentic and I'm overthinking it and so it just doesn't come out as, you know, as well, whether that's me doing a skit or doing a song or, you know, what have you. So, we did um I did my verse. I I had gone to uh Nashville and we recorded my verse at Bryson's home studio. So there's a part in the song where I say um we're talking about you know reclaiming the rainbow and I say um and I'm snatching I ain't asking got an animal instinct Carol Baskin. And so when we listened to when we we listened to it um again, we listened back, I said, "Oh goodness, I need to do it over." And Bryson was like, "Why?

[00:04:35]This is fire. This is good." And I said, "Because I said, and I'm snatching. I ain't asking instead of I'm snatching, I ain't asking, you So, and Bryson was like, "That's absolutely ridiculous. Um, but if you think you can top what you just did, go ahead. Let's, you know, let's do it over." So, I got, you know, got my little headphones on. I was ready, you know, in the booth as they call it. And I get in there and I try to do and I'm snatching. I ain't asking. I did that part right, but the rest of the verse flopped. It was horrible because I just wasn't, you know, I was too focused on and I'm snatching. I ain't asking because I didn't want to come across as being dumb or ignorant. Although I had done a little research, I know that it's a popular topic, right? So, we're listening back to it and Bryson's like, "Nope, this this is trash.

[00:05:47]We're going with the first one because that's the one. That's it. Because I went into Bryson's studio saying I want one of those. You know the thing with the uh what do you have it? I see it all the time when you posting. He was like the billboard. I said yeah I want a number one billboard that can sit in my house. And he said well you better do that when you go into the booth. like I need to know that's what you want when you get on the mic. So, we did that. I got it. But I got it with and I'm snatching. I ain't asking. Okay. AX. Um, and so it's been a thing and it is a topic of conversation and I got an email that was sent to me last night that just made me want to uh revisit the conversation. Now, I don't want to give this guy so much air time, but it was pretty funny to me when I got it because it just brought the whole um it brought the whole thing back up to me. So, I'm going to show you this email cuz it was pretty funny. Um, so from a guy named Paul Land, uh, he sent me this email and he says, "Uh, wait a minute." Okay. You asked for it, you ignorant n-word.

[00:07:19]Need to learn how to speak English if you ever want to be taken seriously.

[00:07:24]Your ghetto garbage has been noticed all over the world. The Ebonic plague will have a cure eventually. Good luck. So, here we are back at uh axed versus axed, right? Um and this guy had to be pretty mad, pretty furious to actually take the time right after dinner to send me this email. Um, I actually think pretty serious, pretty uh feminine because you're emotionally charged. Like you don't need to tuck the kids in the bed, you don't need to, you know, put it down in the bedroom before you got, you know, something. But instead, he wanted to send me an emotionally charged email.

[00:08:15]Um, but it just brought the conversation uh up to me again.

[00:08:21]And so I wanted to actually come to you guys today in just a playful fun way. I I often say that I have a lot of useless knowledge and um baby always says it's not useless.

[00:08:38]like, you know, there are so many things that you teach. Um, so the the knowledge is never useless, but it's just something that I I can't really use on a day-to-day basis. Like on a day-to-day basis, no one cares that it's only the female mosquitoes that bite. You know, this is this is what I call useless knowledge, right? But because this has been a popular topic of conversation, I actually years ago after it being brought to my attention on Cut the Bull, um went and did some research about why is it black people, as they say, can't say ask.

[00:09:28]So what is that about? Why can't we say ask? Why do we always want to say x instead of a sk? We pronounce it a x.

[00:09:41]Um, and most people don't know why.

[00:09:44]They've already decided what it means.

[00:09:47]But I wanted to teach it um teach you a little bit because y'all say y'all are coming to class when you come here. So, I wanted to introduce uh social linguistics to you. Okay, linguistics. Um, and I'm going to keep it pretty simple because it's not that deep, you know, it's not deep enough to be sitting letting your food digest and you're so mad that you want to send me an email. It's not really that deep, but I'm going to share it with you. uh in early forms of English what's known as old English there were actually two versions of this word you had a c s i a n axen that evolved into a sk and axen ax i a n that evolved into ax. So the pronunciation that people mock today existed before the ask pronunciation that people think is correct. This was actually old English.

[00:11:06]And just talking about old English took me back to uh Jeffrey Shasher Sash Shasher um who we had to learn the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in high school and we had to recite it the best we could because there were no computers at the time to actually tell us how to pron uh pronounce these words. We had to do this for a grade. And I hope my best friend is here because it was hilarious. It was the best part of high school that I It was like one of the best parts, right?

[00:11:46]everybody in the class. We're talking about, I don't know, 20some people getting up to have to not only figure out how to pronounce these words, but we had to memorize it and recite it in front of the entire class. So you can imagine being 16, 17 years old, how funny this was, but also how embarrassing it was. So um when I was doing this research and they brought in the whole Canterbury Tales, I'm like, "Oh, I recognize that we had to actually learn about old English in English in high school." And if you've ever read the Canterbury Tales, you already know that English back then sounded very different from English now, which is why I opened up the show with it. And one of my favorite parts was Cuth in Sandre Londis. I don't know why.

[00:12:52]Don't even know what they're actually saying. I don't remember at this point.

[00:12:56]It's been so long. But that was like the favorite part when everybody got to it was Cuth and Sandre Londis. We loved it.

[00:13:04]Um, but I was thinking there was a time when old English mattered. Like we praised old English and now we are actually mocking people who speak in ways that actually trace back to old English. That's where it comes from. not this really big deep you're ignorant you're dumb you don't know anything it's it just evolved that way but it traces back to old English guys this is um some useless knowledge that I had that I wanted to just make a show out of it what actually is happening here is something very simple it's called metastasis metastasis is don't worry about the term because it can be difficult to pronounce. Metath metaththesis.

[00:14:04]It is when sounds switch places. Right?

[00:14:08]So some common examples would be we don't typically say comfortable, we say comfortable.

[00:14:17]We typically don't say probably, we say probably. Okay, this is when sounds switch places and words have evolved.

[00:14:30]Languages change all the time, but we only call it wrong depending on who is speaking. Now, let me be fair and let me be clear.

[00:14:42]There is a such thing as standard English. So, this is not an attempt to toss standard English out the window and minimize its importance. Not doing that at all. I was listening to a video. I think it was yesterday, maybe the day before. There was this young man going to the prom and he had like a jet or something. I don't remember. But he was dressed in Louis Vuitton and the person behind the camera filming them was like, "Oh, look at this. Look at what you got on. Look, look at those." You know, look at the cufflings or whatever. You know, just going through and got down to the shoes and said, "What kind of shoes them is?"

[00:15:32]And I was annoyed. What kind of shoes them is? That's not standard English.

[00:15:38]So, I don't want people to think, "Oh, she's trying to toss out standard English and say it's not important." I'm not saying that at all. I actually grew up and my godmother's sister, she was a teacher. And so, anytime we said something like, um, where you at? She would always say behind the preposition. That was her way of correcting us so that we would say where are you opposed to where you at?

[00:16:14]Although Jennifer Hudson came out years later with a very popular song, Where You at? And I actually liked it. But I just want to make it clear that there is a such thing as standard English and there are appropriate times that you should actually use it. There are settings I need people to understand where it actually matters. It matters young people in interviews. So please don't think because I have given you the history of where it comes from that we say ask instead of ask. Don't say Shemica Michelle is saying none of this matters. I'm not saying that at all.

[00:17:03]There is a such thing as standard English and it matters in interviews.

[00:17:07]When you're going on an interview, young people, you need to know standard English and you need to step in there not saying things like, "Uh, where you at?" or "What kind of shoes them is, you need to be able to speak. If you're going to court, you need to be able to speak standard English." I can't tell you how many times I've sat in court, whether it was for a traffic ticket or with someone else for a more serious issue. And I see people come in there, they cannot talk, they cannot dress, they look as if they just rolled out of the bed, they don't care, but yet they want to u the court to show mercy.

[00:18:00]I want you to know it matters in in certain settings, young people. I business settings, court interviews, there is a certain thing and I need you to know it matters. I just want you to know that you're not dumb or you're not lacking intelligence if you say ask instead of ask, right? It is actually um evolved from old English and two words existed at the same time. Um they were both pronounced the same. The pronunciation ASK came later. So you could just be you know your family could have just held on to axe and it came down through the ages. Maybe the slave masters held on to axe, but I just need you to know it's not about intelligence.

[00:18:59]And we see this conversation so often. I thought it was funny because here it is again. Um, and I just wanted to address it because there are people who are confusing dialogue or dialect with intelligence. And I want you to know it's it's not the same. I beat you up so much. I guess I assume some people may feel like I beat you up so much. Oh, you never say anything positive to black people. You and Jason are just so rude to black people. All you do is discuss the culture.

[00:19:41]All you do is put black people down with the culture. So, I wanted to say something positive on this Cinco de Mayo and let me um even let the the the immigrants the illegal immigrants know.

[00:19:59]Happy Cinco de Mayo, okay? It's Come on, guys. I just really want us to kind of learn and grow together. Some things are not that serious. Some things you do not need to search and find someone's email about and be so emotionally driven that you would go to such links. Usually when I get an email, if someone has gone through the trouble of finding my email address, it's for something thoughtful like they want u right they want to uh teach me something, get me to see something a certain way, share something with me, send me something, be it a book or be it some earrings or something. Uh, but when someone goes through the lengths of finding my email over Acts, I think it says more about you than it says about me. Um, and I just thought it was funny. I need y'all to know this isn't really just about Acts versus Acts, ask versus Acts. This is more uh about perception and how we perceive people. And sometimes how we perceive people is very important guys. I don't want to act like it's not. Um sometimes speech to a lot of people uh equals intelligence assumptions.

[00:21:34]It does. Sometimes speech equals class assumptions. If you're always walking around and every other word is a curse word, people are going to make assumptions.

[00:21:50]If you speak and every other word is um um or uh people are going to make assumptions and with those assumptions based on your speech there will be uh a dis a decision of respect for some people. Now everybody doesn't think this way obviously but there are going to be um some some aspects of respect. Do I respect this person? They're cursing every other word. Do I respect this person? They say ask versus They say ask versus ask. Do I respect this person?

[00:22:29]They say they they are saying where you at uh behind the preposition. You know, this happens.

[00:22:38]And um so the issue is not really about the word. It's about the speaker and how you present yourself, how you know, do you care about what you're saying? Do you care about how you're saying it? Do you care about how you look presenting it?

[00:23:01]It matters. Um, I think the whole argument acts versus acts is silly, but you know, for a lot of people it matters. You know, this man thought he insulted me. I don't know if he thought I was going to open the email and I was going to cry or if he was just looking for attention. I don't know. But he he actually handed me a show. Okay. And so for that, Paul, I appreciate you. I thank you because sometimes I don't want to talk about what's going on in the world. I watched um my timeline yesterday and the only thing filling my timeline um were people dressed for the Met Gala.

[00:23:49]I didn't necessarily want to talk about the Met Gala today. I said yesterday, I know y'all are tired of hearing me talk about Candace Owens and Erica Kirk. I'm almost tired of talking about it, but you know, it it was the topic of conversation, which also at times flood my timeline. So, I thank Paul for giving me a little break from reality, which is still reality, but a little break from the headline news. I didn't necessarily want to talk about Beyonce going to the Met Gala for the first time in 10 years or Sam Smith being in a dress or, you know, I could talk about that because let's be honest, he looked like a fool, Sam Smith in the dress. Um, and it, if you ask me, we want to know where the pedophiles are from the Jeffrey Epstein flight logs at the Met Gala. a lot of them, probably most of them coming in from Hollywood. Uh, so I definitely could have talked about it, but he handed me a show and I'm grateful. A light show, lighthearted. I hope you all learned something today. Um, that it it actually, let's see, actually, you know, how do I how should I pronounce that? I don't know. I'm scared to say. I don't want another email about how I pronounce actually.

[00:25:28]Actually, I don't know. I don't know y'all. Uh, you can prefer ask. It can grind your gears when people say axe. But I need you to know that people saying axe doesn't make someone ignorant. It's history. And if you just take the time to do a little basic research, you can stop asking this question. You can stop making it a thing because otherwise it looks as if research isn't on your side. When you take the time to send me an emotionally charged email and call me ignorant, the fact that you don't know this says more about you than it says about me because I've actually researched this and it's not a thing as you all might think it's a thing. It's not that big of a deal. Okay, people.

[00:26:34]Y'all are hilarious to me, but you keep me going and you you give me something to talk about. And uh my best friend is here. She says, "Miss Decada is smiling down from heaven." That's our um English teacher from high school.

[00:26:51]And I love the lady. Um Bless 7773 says, "What's up class?" What up class? Um, my favorite verse of all time.

[00:27:04]Hi, Kai. What's your favorite verse of all time? Um, all my hoes demonetized. You doing your thing with the fedora. Love. Thank you.

[00:27:15]It's hat week.

[00:27:18]I determined this was hat week because over the weekend I actually detangled my hair and put it in twist because I need to shampoo it. But I didn't get a chance to shampoo it over the weekend. So it's hat week until I can get back to another weekend and actually shampoo my hair. So I'll be in hats all week. Might even throw a scarf in there. Who knows? But um my my hair is in wash wash twists.

[00:27:50]Teresa gets mad when I say wash, but it's in wash twist. Um stimulated student says, "Me too. I have a lot of trivia knowledge and true only pregnant uh mosquitoes bite. I did a presentation on malaria in college. Lol." Right. it and it is trivial knowledge because um it's trivial and it's for trivia because I do pretty good sometimes at Jeopardy depending on the category because I have this knowledge that you know people are like why do you know this you know um I remember I was watching Jeopardy with someone and Leotine Price was the uh was the the question or whatever what is or who is Leotine Price and they said, "How do you know that?" But it was because she had this commercial uh for the United Negro College Fund back in the day, reaching for a dream that f tomorrow.

[00:28:52]A better situation is coming on.

[00:28:57]And I can sing that whole thing all the way through, y'all. Useless knowledge.

[00:29:02]um uh stimulated students. There are certain sounds that come natural to certain demographics. I can't roll my arms when I speak Spanish. Not a natural sounds and tongue movement for me.

[00:29:16]Absolutely.

[00:29:17]Um Miguel, what? Not old English 800, right? Not not OE.

[00:29:29]Um let's see. Let's see what else do we have here. Um, I see a See, I'm not the only one here with uh a lot of useless knowledge. Stimulated students says, "I don't like when people say conversate, right?" And you know what's so crazy? Uh, um, stimulated students. I think I was grown before I realized conversate was not a word because it was in uh Delansancy Street a rap back in maybe I'm dating myself but he said um I thought they wanted to conversate but then they all pulled up six shooter trade eight or something like that you know three fresh females who would have thought that they tried to rob me I almost got caught you know he said conversate I thought it was the word. I thought it was something that I learned. I'm like, "Oh, conversate."

[00:30:28]Until I got older and I'm like, "Oh, the word is actually conversing. Oh my god, converse."

[00:30:36]Had no idea. I said conversate for over half my life. And now when I hear it, I'm just like, "Yeah, it's not quite right." Um, stimulated students, phonics doesn't make you ignorant. poor syntax does. Um, people are dropping down. I loved Miguel says, "I loved when Bernie Mack was on the Kangs and was saying how a conversation can be mainly of using mfer.

[00:31:11]That was a pretty good show." Um, Repping Magazine OG black folk that have that little piece of paper always trying to check someone. Check the lady boys in the D9 situation.

[00:31:23]Word. Okay. Now that if you want to check something, check that.

[00:31:30]That'll preach. Check that. Um, Repping Magazine says, "You know, your music just a little bit." Dana Dane, that's who it was. Thank you. Bless 7773.

[00:31:42]Yes, I love music. You know what I'm um do? You know whose show I want to be on? Willie D.

[00:31:53]First of all, we disagree on so many things. I am actually so sad that he actually singed for Kamla as much as he did. But Willie D of the ghetto boys, like the ghetto boys, um, we can't be stopped. That album was one of my favorites. I can pretty much rap that from beginning to end.

[00:32:17]And here he is not being this gangster that I thought he was. Just sing for a Camala, sing for w uh women. Every time I turn around, he has something uh negative to say as if black men should just uh tuck and roll over.

[00:32:39]like doesn't sound like the man I grew up uh rapping to or that I was rapping to in in high school was so uh Yes. Not slow talking Willie D. Yes.

[00:32:54]You know I I know I know. Don't say I didn't warn you about playing them punk games. Night calling me out of my name.

[00:33:03]Some of y'all still going to try to show off and get busted in your mouth. You know, this is why they say you should never what? Meet your heroes because they always disappoint you. Always.

[00:33:18]Anyway, guys, I hope you learned something today. I hope you can take with you that asks versus ask is not an intelligence thing. It's about dialect.

[00:33:29]where it comes from. It is something lingering from old uh English. It actually evolved prior to the pronunciation that we think is right today. ASK. So, actually, we could mock y'all if we wanted to, but we won't because it's not that serious. Um, Black Wall Street Odd says, "Oh, man.

[00:33:56]And yeah, his slow talking makes his podcast unbearable. Yeah. Hey, Teakira.

[00:34:03]I love you, y'all. Um, there she is.

[00:34:13]Our Miss Hillside. Hi. She was Miss Hillside when I was in school. I'm I'm sorry um to Kira, but I love her.

[00:34:24]Anyway, y'all, I'll be back here tomorrow shaking my head about something else. What was the name? Oh, Bushwit Bill.

[00:34:35]I was going to say what Yeah, and he's no longer with us. He's gone on to to heaven. I I'll be back here tomorrow shaking my head about something else. I hope to see you then. And I hope you learned something. I hope this little bit of useless knowledge, this trivial knowledge was helpful to somebody somewhere and you can use it against somebody else at some time. I love y'all. Peace.