Hi everyone and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy and this is our 195th episode.

I think this episode is kind of special.

It's a fun one that shows that unexpected things about pronunciation are always happening,

and there will always be more to learn.

Way back last July, a question popped up on the English Assembly forums that led to a really

interesting discussion.

A user named Tony asked how to pronounce the words asked and asks.

He also mentioned that he was having more trouble with asked than asks.

Fellow user, Knock, said that he noticed that sometimes it seems like people don't say the K sound in

Asked, pronouncing it as asked instead.

I had honestly never noticed it before Knock mentioned it, but once it was brought to my attention,

I did notice it happening from time to time.

Many months passed. Then a few weeks ago, I was watching an episode of the TV sitcom, How I Met Your

Mother. This particular episode had the theme of a group of friends calling each other when they needed help with something,

but they didn't want the friend to ask why it needed to be done.

We have a phrase for this in English, and that phrase is, no questions asked.

The idea behind no questions asked is, I need you to do this, but you can't ask why.

Among this group of friends, this came up so often that they began using the phrase as a noun

that means something similar to a favor.

So instead of saying, you owe me a favor, they would say you owe me a no questions asked.

During this episode, the phrase was repeated again and again and again.

...