As some pointed out, this pronunciation mix-up stems from what's called the cot–caught merger, a linguistic sound change in which North American English speakers began to pronounce words like ...

But one linguist has jumped to the defense of how Americans view and pronounce words from foreign lands, particularly well-known French words, names and phrases. Woody, an American linguist who'd ...

As Old English evolved into Middle and then modern English, the word became asken and then ask. But the ax pronunciation stuck around—and ax and ask coexisted for a long time.

This article was originally published with the title “ Pronunciation of Words in Singing ” in SA Supplements Vol. 38 No. 986supp (November 1894), p. 15759 doi:10.1038 ...