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  • We have a word in English that we use to refer specifically to

  • the little star that we use as a typographical convention.

  • And the word is "asterisk."

  • When I say that word, I have to actually slow myself down, because

  • "asterisk" is not how I say that word. I say "asteriks."

  • And I became very aware of this a few weeks ago,

  • when I was teaching Indo-European,

  • in which we use that little star to mark reconstructed forms,

  • to mark forms for which we have no evidence.

  • So multiple times in the lecture, I had to say

  • "asterisk," except more than half the time I said "asteriks."

  • The students, of course, pointed this out to me--

  • that I had two pronounciations.

  • And I said, "Well I only say 'asterisk' when I'm being careful."

  • We have a word in linguistics for this

  • process of switching sounds--in this case s and k--called

  • "metathesis," and there are many examples in

  • English of sounds switching places like this.

  • One example is "bird," which used to be "brid."

  • And "third" used to be "thrid," which actually makes much more sense,

  • because then you can see the relationship with "three."

  • Now the one that people are often surprised about is that

  • "asked" used to be "aksed."

  • Many people assume it goes the other direction: that it was

  • "ask" and then some people started saying "aks."

  • But actually "aks," as in

  • "aks a question," is older, and in fact Chaucer uses

  • "aks" in the Wife of Bath's Tale.

  • So in that case, we had a "ks" changed to an "sk."

  • In "asterisk" we are taking an "sk" and changing it to a "ks."

  • So next time you go to the drugstore and you realize you're asking for a

  • "perscription" instead of a

  • "prescription," just realize that you're participating

  • in this process called metathesis, and you're not the only one.

We have a word in English that we use to refer specifically to

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