KMark & WalMark
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:51 pm
In Chattanooga, TN, there are a lot of people who use KMark instead of Kmart and Walmark instead of Walmart. This drives me nuts. Anyone else ever hear of such?
JJ
JJ
Could you please explain me exactly what being "uneducated" has to do with all this?would still smell the same. hahaha. Yes, I have heard some uneducated people say Wal-Mark and K-Mark. I beleive it is just ignorance, not to be taken offensively.
Does it also apply to people who write the /i:/-sound of 'believe' the same way as in 'receive'? This is not to be taken offensively. I'm not nitpicking, not making a (sarcastic) joke. Actually, I don't care that much about spelling or spelling mistakes (or typos). I'm just wondering about the limits of what you people call "uneducated" in relation to language usage.I'm guessing that "uneducated" refers to the part of the population which does not read (mostly by their own choice). These people do not grasp the relationship between the letters in the store's name and the sounds used to pronounce it. "Educated" people are generally expected to pronounce words and names correctly, regardless of whether their neighbors do or not.
I consider 2a to include the ability to recognize and correctly use common words in one's native language, which is different from perpetrating the occasional typo, or adhering to regional differences in pronunciation.1. Having an education, especially one above the average. 2a. Showing evidence of schooling, training, or experience. b. Having or exhibiting cultivation; cultured: an educated manner. 3. Based on a certain amount of experience or factual knowledge: an educated guess.
Yes! I have a relative who does so. Thought I was the only one who has noticed it.In Chattanooga, TN, there are a lot of people who use KMark instead of Kmart and Walmark instead of Walmart. This drives me nuts. Anyone else ever hear of such?
JJ
LOL. Good to know I am not the only one laughing at my relatives. But then again, as my husband so aptly reminds me, I often say "pilla" instead of "pillow".My mama, who has a MA from an accredited Southern university, refers to WalMart, in her proper NE Texas twang, as WalMarts. And she makes it close to a three-syllable word. I've corrected this woman a few times, then just gave up. Now, I think it's a hoot. And my kids - her grandkids - just roll when she says it. I think she does it now just for their entertainment??
Well, actually, 'aks' is much older a form than 'ask'. It's found back in OE (acsian), in ME the forms 'asken' and 'aksen' existed, 'aks' is still used in some English dialects. For one or another reason, 'ask' was chosen to be the standard form...I always had an issue with some of my friends (black) who were born in Michigan, saying asked or ask as axed or axe. I noticed when I became a truck driver this is very popular in the south among black folk and some white folk. It is like wash and warsh... adding letters.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
ax[sup]2[/sup]
PRONUNCIATION: ăks
VERB: Inflected forms: ax·ed, ax·ing, ax·es
Nonstandard Variant of ask.
OUR LIVING LANGUAGE: Ax, a common nonstandard variant of ask, is often identified as an especially salient feature of African American Vernacular English. While it is true that the form is frequent in the speech of African Americans, it used to be common in the speech of white Americans as well, especially in New England. This should not be surprising since ax is a very old word in English, having been used in England for over 1,000 years.[emphasis added] In Old English we find both āscian and ācsian, and in Middle English both asken and axen. Moreover, the forms with cs or x had no stigma associated with them. Chaucer used asken and axen interchangeably, as in the lines “I wol aske, if it hir will be/To be my wyf” and “Men axed hym, what sholde bifalle,” both from The Canterbury Tales. The forms in x arose from the forms in sk by a linguistic process called metathesis, in which two sounds are reversed. The x thus represents (ks), the flipped version of (sk). Metathesis is a common linguistic process around the world and does not arise from a defect in speaking. Nevertheless, ax has become stigmatized as substandard—a fate that has befallen other words, like ain't, that were once perfectly acceptable in literate circles.
This reminds me of something from my long years in Israel. The majority of folks out there refer to the Japanese auto Mitsubishi as "Mitsibushi". Just don't axe me why.In Chattanooga, TN, there are a lot of people who use KMark instead of Kmart and Walmark instead of Walmart. This drives me nuts. Anyone else ever hear of such?
JJ
Well, if we follow the line of reasoning of Joytoy e.a. it's because they're uneducated and ignorant, no?This reminds me of something from my long years in Israel. The majority of folks out there refer to the Japanese auto Mitsubishi as "Mitsibushi". Just don't axe me why.
Amen to that.In some countries people are judged by their accents and regional speech idiocracies but as for me I believe that's JUST NOT RIGHT!