Joseph McBride replies to Dale Myers re the Tippit case

[LR Trotter]

I read a comment about a mispronouncement of the word asked, by LHO. Instead of "asked", he said "aksed". An easier to pronounce "aksed", was used when he referred to a question about the President's murder. I saw mention of a possible symptom of LHO's dyslexia. Maybe so, but I have heard that mispronouncement fairly often. Especially, by some of my Cajun French speaking friends from south Louisiana, but others as well. Maybe it was stress, and he returned to an easier pronouncement of the word "asked" that he likely used as a young child before an education taught him the correct spelling and pronouncement. Some of us, at least at times, have some difficulty with the pronouncement of certain words. In any event, I believe he said "aksed", and not "axed". JMO, but I can and do, appreciate Mr McBride's effort at establishment of true facts, by replying to the uh, uh, DM uh, version of the JDT murder case.

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I used to look down on persons who said "axed" for "asked," until I heard a linguist say in a documentary that "axed" is the original form of the word in early English. "Asked" is a later, aristocratic, refinement. Forgive me if it is still too early in the day for me to trace the exact etymology, but "Oswald" violates a social norm here, not a linguistic rule.

One thing in "Oswald's" use of "axed": Would a non-native, non-Southern, speaker consciously lapse into the demotic form "axed" while under stress? Tends to aid in establishing that the arrested "Oswald" was an American of southern extraction. And "axed" is used in the Bronx as well.

No argument here, but I was referring to personal experience, and I have never been to the Bronx. But, I seem to recall hearing radio/tv interviews from that area when "aksed" was used instead of "asked". So, it is not restricted to any specific area. It's easier for me to say "aksed", than it is to say "asked", especially when speaking East Texas English. And, he (aka LHO) was not saying "the reporters in the hall" wanted to have a question "axed". It was "aksed me that question". I am not trying to split hairs, but someone less familiar with 11/22 might get the wrong idea.

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