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Does anyone know why Americans use the pronunciation primer, rhymes with dimmer; for a book to teach children to read or an introductory book on a subject? As opposed to primer, rhymes with, well; rhymer. I believe both pronunciations are acceptable but I've only ever heard the primer / dimmer usage in the U.S.A.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I don't know, but it always drove me nuts! welcome to the board, phleebler. 
formerly known as etaoin...
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enthusiast
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A prim and proper schoolmarm's never-reveled Freudian slip?
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I've only heard it pronounced "primmer" by older people - those about my (now deceased) granparents ages (90 - 94). No idea why they did it this way. I always thought it was the olde English way. Maybe it was just a mispronunciation that caught on.
My grandpa also said "EYE TAL yun spaghetti."
My own weirdness is arithmetic, which I learnt to pronounce as arith MA' tic when used as an adjective. I recall my teacher (among the best I ever had) specifically telling us this.
So as a noun, a rith muh TIK'
and as an adjective, a rith MA' tik (short A in MA)
(as in a rith MA' tik progression)
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My understanding has been that a primmer is a prayer book or book for beginning readers, whereas a primer (prhymer)is a base coat of paint before the real color is painted on or it is using a bit of water to prime a pump i.e.
It is a fine distinction. When I looked at my OED CD it pretty much agreed.
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a primmer is a... book?!
huh. to me, primmer means "more prim".
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primmer means "more prim"
yeah, that's what always threw me...
formerly known as etaoin...
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The primers we had in school were always pretty prim.
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You also hear this in the UK vs US pronunciation of privacy. Probably has something to do with language change between the UK and the 13 colonies.
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... and primping for the prom often includes a bit of face primer.
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language change between the UK and the 13 colonies.
N. Webster kilt a bar.
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UK privvacy vs US privacy
UK primer vs US primmer
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old hand
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Fprget privvacy/pryvacy, what about dylemma (Brit) and duhluhmuh (I swear I've heard an USsian pronounce it with three schwas)?
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>>and as an adjective, a rith MA' tik (short A in MA)
I've only ever heard it pronounced in this way.
A primer (pronounced prime-er here) was the name given to the first reading book you got in 1st grade. The "See spot run" book. After that, they became "readers."
(oh and also that base coat of paint)
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In the town where I went to school, the junior classes were known as primers, pronounced primmer, never primer.
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Grades 1 through 6 are known as primary school here.
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Same here, Bel. Primary school here used to consist of Primer 1 and Primer 2, then Standard 1-4 (sometimes 5 & 6). Now, happily, the system is being simplified, just Year 1-13.
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> Primary school here used to consist of Primer 1 and Primer 2 so is that primmary school, then?? 
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stranger
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My experience was that somewhere between the rural Midwestern US c.1940 and the high desert western US c. 1960 the pronunciation of a basic learning material changed from primmer to prymer. The basic coat of paint was always prymer in both places.
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Pooh-Bah
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A prim and proper schoolmarm's never- reveled Freudian slip? Thanks Owlbow for the giggle. And Hi jj135, welcome aboard.
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duhluhmuh (I swear I've heard an USsian pronounce it with three schwas)?
ain't that the correct way? never heard Dy lem ma
i have heard something close to Musick's and dil lemma (as in Ned flanders of Simpson fame saying something like its a dilly of a dil lemma!--but never die lemma. Not even when stuck on horns.. (you know, the famous set of horns of a duhluhmuh)
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The New England Primer was a textbook, first published in 1690, and reprinted in numerous editions. It was used in Boston, in New England, and throughout the Colonies. Because of the high value placed on reading Holy Scripture, many Colonists supported universal literacy. There were no inhibitions to combining religious instruction with teaching the alphabet. Hence, the following:
A In ADAM'S Fall
We sinned all.
B Heaven to find;
The Bible Mind.
C Christ crucify'd
For sinners dy'd.
D The Deluge drown'd
The Earth around.
E ELIJAH hid
By Ravens fed.
F The judgment made
FELIX afraid.
G As runs the Glass,
Our Life doth pass.
H My Book and Heart
Must never part.
J JOB feels the Rod,--
Yet blesses GOD.
K Proud Korah's troop
Was swallowed up
L LOT fled to Zoar,
Saw fiery Shower
On Sodom pour.
M MOSES was he
Who Israel's Host
Led thro' the Sea
N NOAH did view
The old world & new.
O Young OBADIAS,
DAVID, JOSIAS,
All were pious.
P PETER deny'd
His Lord and cry'd.
Q Queen ESTHER sues
And saves the Jews.
R Young pious RUTH,
Left all for Truth.
S Young SAM'L dear,
The Lord did fear.
T Young TIMOTHY
Learnt sin to fly.
V VASHTI for Pride
Was set aside.
W Whales in the Sea,
GOD's Voice obey.
X XERXES did die,
And so must I.
Y While youth do chear
Death may be near.
Z ZACCHEUS he
Did climb the Tree
Our Lord to see.
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G As runs the Glass,
Our Life doth pass.
Glass here seems to mean hour glass. Not what I would have thought the first choice from the bare word.
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addict
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G As runs the Glass,
Our Life doth pass.
Glass here seems to mean hour glass.
Well, I'm sure you're right, but I just thought I'd add that glass (as in window glass) DOES run. If you look at old (say, more than 100 years old) window panes (where the glass has not been replaced) you can clearly see the ripples in the glass, and the bottom edge will be significantly thicker than the top edge. I have heard glass referred to as an extremely viscous liquid, rather than a solid.
Also,
X XERXES did die,
And so must I.
Y While youth do chear
Death may be near.
No wonder the puritans were so dour, eh? Learning to read on stuff like this would put a damper on any kid's spirit.
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Somewhere, I seem to remember it as either snopes or Cecil, there was a refutation of this flowing glass story, but a quick search of both of the above fails to find it. The glass, simply enough, was made that way. Another thing stuck in my JDM® is that, if you look around, you will find as much glass that seems to have flowed up as flowed down.
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UK primer vs US primmer
The primary pronunciation in the OED, 1st edition, is /'prIm@r/, and the secondary one is /'pr@jm@r/.
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old hand
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Flatlander
My understanding is that 'flowing' glass is a bit of a myth. A lot of glass from before the industrial revolution (in fact, before Pilkington developed the molten lead flow process) was made by spinning blown glass into discs. Even when cut into panes one edge was likely to be slightly thicker than the other - resulting in the dubious claim that it has flowed over time.
As for the 'fact' I was taught in school, that glass is a supercooled liquid (hence 'explaining' its flow), that turns out to be very dubious too. Glass (which refers to a particalar state of matter, rather than a particular substance), is any solid that does not have a defined crystalling state. For this reason it has properties that can be quite different from those of other, crystalline, solids. Apart from this peculiarity, however, all glasses seems to possess all the other properties we'd expect of solids - indices of brittleness and toughness, expansion and contraction due to heating and cooling, quite specific melting points, and so on.
I'm way too lazy to look up internet references (and rather bad at that sort of thing, too) but gathered most of my, albeit surely slightly garbled, information on this by a classic popular science text, The New Science of Strong Materials by J E Gordon. It is, amazingly, still in print after all these years, and available on Amazon. I also recommend its more general companion book Structures. They were published in 1976 and 1978 but haven't dated at all.
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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It might be worthwhile to point out that our dear sjmaxq is posting from New Zealand.
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And glass flows the other way in New Zealand.
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>And glass flows the other way in New Zealand.
Well, we do raise them to the Queen - it's called the "Cor! I owe Liz" effect.
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Ewww.
I don't believe it. Simultaneously good and bad.
How you do dat, Max?
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formerly known as etaoin...
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>How you do dat, Max?
It's a gift (in English or German).
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K Proud Korah's troop
Was swallowed up
Interesting pronunciation back in 1690... or is the ultimate 'p' *enough?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pronunciation definitely was different in C16/C17 from what it is now - on the radio today, I heard a reconstruction of part of Romeo and Juliet as they believe it was spoken in Shakespeare's day, and it sounded like a West-country accent!
However, a lot might depend from whereabouts in England the writer (or his parents) had emigrated. If they had come from the northern or north Midland counties of England, then "up" would almost certainly have been pronounced "oop" - as it still is today in those parts.
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Pooh-Bah
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Yah. I were oop in Brum terday.
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Pooh-Bah
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Massive Scandinavian influence in language and culture anywhere in England north of a line from the Wash to the Severn! A Scandinavian King ruled northerm England for quite a while - and even William, Duke of Normandy based his claim to the throme of England on his Scandinavian forebears.
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While William the Bastard (as he was known at the time) was indeed of Norse descent, his immediate claim to the English throne was that his cousin Edward the Confessor had allegedly promised him the throne during William's visit to England in 1051. Harold II had previously sworn to uphold his (i.e., William's) claim (though he repudiated it at Edward's deathbed), and therefore Harold was a usurper.
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usurperis that oosoorper?
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I've always pronounced it /ju's@rp@r/. AFAIK that's correct. It's usually given as the gloss of my first name, James (ya`akobh, Jacob), but that's probably a folk etymology.
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stranger
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Thanks for the welcome and thank you all for your replies. From what I have read recently primer/dimmer is possibly the first pronunciation as in prima ballerina. Does anyone know the pronunciation of the latin primarius? I have e-mailed the Anglicans to see if they can help but I have had no reply yet. I'm going to try the Catholics next. Of course, I'm not sure if I should get involved with cults.
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for prima I would pronounce that preema, and the same(especially if I was singing it) for primarius, "pree- mahr-ee-oos", though something tells me I might say it, prie(like pie, long i)-mare-ee-uhs. one of them latin scholars will give us the definitive answer... I'm just a singer...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Yep, like etaoin said. Of course I'm just an amateur singer... and a very basic student of Latin.
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Primarius, with the first i and a being long and the other vowels short. A long i in Latin would've been pronounced like the {ee} in feet. The accent would be antepenultimate, as the two singers have suggested, with the stress on {mar}. This would hold for (the reconstructed) Classical Latin and Ecclesiastical (Italian) pronunciations.
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Glass does flow downhill, at least just a little bit. If you take glass tubing as is used in a chemistry lab and lie it down horizontal with supports only at the ends, after a month or so there will be a slight but distinct bow to the glass.
And many of the windows in my house are visually rippled, with more of the ripples toward the bottom, BTW, a glazier has told me that this rippled glass now sells vor at least $0.10 per square inch, with larger panes going for five and six times that much. People who want ultra authenticity in their renovations can get pretty crazy.
My front entryway has a lot of this, but the most interesting feature to the door is that it is not only not square it appears to have been made that way. When I first looked at it I realized it wasn't square and figured it had sagged. But upon closer inspection all nine pieces of glass, including the large central section, which is about 60 inches by 13, are skewed by about three degrees from square. Which makes them hmmm trapezoids? Actually, now that I think about it, it's more likely that the door sagged, caused the glass to break, and someone replaced the square glass with panes that were cut to fit. None of the sections of glass in the door itself are antique (and also none of them are safety glass, which means I should replace them with little kids around.)
TEd
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None of the sections of glass in the door itself are antique (and also none of them are safety glass, which means I should replace them with little kids around.)"
... and potential burglars.
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As my dear ol' Dad was fond of saying : "Any dam fool can tie a knot in glass but it takes a master to untie it."
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