Axing vs Asking

I have finally found someone that shares my true passion for the correct pronunciation of the English language. I have a huge prejudice against those who have lived here their entire lives and whose native language is English and yet they cannot speak properly. It's one thing when English is an individual's second language or is just learning the language. With that I can cut them some slack but with someone who is born and raised here in the States, learn proper English. My theatre teacher seems intelligent, uses decent grammar and whatnot, has been a professional actor for a while and seems successful. Then the other day he was talking to us about acting and the use of facial expressions, blah blah blah and he mentioned something about asking a question; only he didn't pronounce ask as "ask" instead, he pronounced it as "axe." Yes, like the tool used for cutting wood. He "axed" a question. I died a little bit on the inside; my respect for him also fell slightly.

I remember the first time I ever heard someone pronounce ask incorrectly. It was when I was in high school and I volunteered at a grade school and there was this little back girl I worked with a lot because she could not construct a sentence to save her life. She came up to me one day and said she wanted to "axe me something." I honestly had no idea what she was saying; I was horribly confused. I asked her what she was talking about and she said she wanted to "axe me a question." Then it dawned on me what she was actually trying to say. I told her the correct word is "ask" which is used in reference to a question; "axe" would entail chopping something up. I had to work with her the rest of the year on that and told her I would not help her in any way unless she learned how to speak to me properly. Whenever she would "axe" something I would just stare at her and then she would say it properly. What is wrong with our school systems that kids can get away with "axing"questions?? So there was the fifth grader saying it and now my theatre teacher, a grown man who calls himself an actor saying "axe" instead of "ask." I swear, if he came to me for an audition and said axe, I'd throw his butt out and tell him not to come back until he learned how to speak English properly.

So up until now I seemed to be the only one that had such a passion for proper pronunciation and grammar until I started talking to this guy in my stats class. I worked with him on a stats exercise so thats how we started chatting. We both had a break after cass: mine in between classes and his before he had to go to work. So he went to get lunch, I came along and munched an apple. I mentioned my theatre teacher and he about died as well. He's from the boonies but knows the importance of proper language skills and uses them himself. I was so glad to know I wasn't alone in my frustration with people. So we had a nice time for 50 minutes chatting about random things. Sadly enough statistics managed to come up randomly and I deemed us both nerds that we can discuss drinking/girls/language and have statistics figure into it. He laughed and agreed then we parted ways. So yay for intelligent eye candy; they're always nice to have around. ;)