m & n

[Alice Faber]

David Bowie said:
>From:    Thomas Paikeday thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA
>
><snip>
>
>: QUESTION TO PHONETICIANS: Is this something like metathesis as in the
>: commonly heard "aks" for "ask" with a vowel thrown in between the
>: consonants in question?...
>
>Somewhere along my training as a sociolinguist, i'd been told that the
>ask/aks thing can be traced back to competing OE forms ascan/acsan, not
>simply to (recent) metathesis. Is this real, or just a bit of linguistic
>myth?

It's true. Furthermore, I believe that "acs(i)an" is the original
form. I recall checking this in the OED at one point, but can't do so
(again) at the moment).


--
 =============================================================================
Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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