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stranger
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I'd like to know current usuages of the word "prime time", especially used as an adjective. I'm urgently need some explanations and examples about the word.
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear megafrog,
Cute name. Would love to know the derivation!
Prime time would be the time of day, generally between 7 and 11 pm, when the television audience would be the greatest.
I can't think of numerous examples of applications of prime time as an adjective, but here are some obvious ones:
prime time television prime time audience prime time viewers prime time listeners prime time viewing habits prime time television show surveys prime time news
...that kind of application.
Hope this is roughly what you're looking for. If not, just clarify your question.
Best regards, WW
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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perhaps FROG is looking for ways in which the "original" TV usage has been transferred, in which case I would recommend a google or three.
e.g.; The Grand Central Racquet Club+charges the highest fee I know of for renting either of its two courts—forty-five dollars an hour in prime time. - New Yorker
but prime-time is more interesting than it would appear at first blush--our usage is actually a renewal of a term whose obsolete senses include 1) springtime or spring and 2) the early age of the world.
"It befel in the primetime of the worlde." -Golding, De Mornay
(adjectival usages are left as an exercize for the student :)
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Joined: Oct 2000
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veteran
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veteran
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our usage is actually a renewal of a term whose obsolete senses include 1) springtime or spring and 2) the early age of the world.
Ah - inherited from the French primtemps, peut-etre?
speaking of which, where's belM?
Only just occurs to me that prim ("prim and proper") is probably related. And then you have "primrose"..
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Multi-sport legend Deion Sanders was known as Prime Time. Others more versed in his lore may be able to tell you whether or not he got that cognomen before his TV show Prime Time NFL Starring Deion Sanders.
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old hand
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old hand
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Um, Shona? Isn't it printemps, with an n? French is not my specialty, but your first m doesn't look right.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Isn't it printemps, with an n?
sacré bleu! that's rite!
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Reading this printemps=prime time connection makes me think of the Target/Wal-Mart comments.
Is this pretty much the joke in the parts of the US where one finds Wal-Marts and Target stores?
Here's how the little joke works--and it is a very little joke.
You ask someone where he bought a shirt.
He says at Target, but he pronounces the "g" as the French "zsh" and the "et" as an "ay" Or:..."Tar-zshay"
The little joke is Tarzshay is the upper class Wal-Mart. And, of course, there's no real upper class involved here at all. It's just Target is a cut above--so it's reported--above Wal-Mart, the super bargain center.
Now how does this tangent connect to prime time and printemps? I was just thinking that it would be humorous to refer to prime time television as printemps télévision. I'm probably the only person this sounds humorous to, but I'll go ahead and post this post and just laugh softly to myself.
Best regards, WW
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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residing, as I do, in the original home of Target, which has outlasted its parent Day-ton's as a retail touchstone, it was (ironically) called Tarzhay long before Walmart came along.
(Dayton's has been swallowed whole by Marshall Fields)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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but then Wal-mart is pronounced " Valmar", and another regional chain, Ames, is " Ah-mehs. and the joke goes on....
formerly known as etaoin...
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