I never thought I'd do this. I pride myself on how adept I am with this language, yet in the past week I've come upon two things. Two errors. On my part.
Read the following aloud: Sue read from her English primer.
How did you pronounce that last word? Long I or short? "pry-mer". Me too. But did you know that it's pronounced "prim-mer"? Yeah, me either. I was watching the Microsoft .NET Show (in case you had any doubt that I was a geek), and the host mentions the show will be a "primmer" about blahblahblah. The blahblahblah was what he continued to talk about as my mind grabbed 'hold of the word and started laughing at him. "It's 'pry-mer', you fool!" my mind said. But, just in case there was a regional pronunciation of the word, I looked it up. Apparently the region is Earth.
To comfort you all, I assure you that there is a word pronounced "pry-mer", which has the meaning for explosives and paint, and apparently genetics.
Two days later: pronounce the word "victuals". Even if you don't know what it means, pronounce it. Don't go look it up -- I want you to say it the way I always have. Actually, I'm not sure I've ever actually said it, but the way my mind's voice says it when I read it.
You've possibly heard of the cat food brand Tender Vittles. Vittles. I think we've all heard the word, and if you're like me (you lucky soul), you probably assumed it was a pseudo-word used to mean food. Like «eats».
Nope; "victuals" is vittles. That's how it's pronounced. Ugh.
I've mentioned before that I don't care for people who write words that they've heard, but -- we can hope -- have never seen in print. Intensive purposes. Melon calling.
In my defense, my error is the other way around. I've seen the words in print and have obviously made assumptions on the pronunciation (reasonable ones, in my opinion). At least I could spell them correctly. Or could I? If someone said to me, "spell 'prim-mer'" or "spell 'vittles'". I'd have given them (after a strange look for 'prim-mer') "primmer" and "vittles".
The things you loin everyday. That's right, "loin". From the Latin lumbus, to Old French numbles, as in umbles, or "umble pie". Also known as "humble pie", my title for today, and of which I'm having a nice juicy slice. You better enjoy it, because you won't hear me say I was wrong -- twice -- that often.
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2 comments:
I always thought that 'primer', as in the text, was related to the verb 'to prime', which my mind has in the same mental bucket as 'to make ready': to prime a pump, perhaps. 'Primer,' as in the textbook, has a different root than 'prime', 'primary' and 'primae'? 'Primer' isn't based on the book read at 'prime'? What's the root of this trickster primer that it has a pronounciation so different from how we'd expect?
And how were you pronouncing 'victuals'? 'Veekchuals'? Please don't tell me that's the /correct/ way!
My mind had made a similar conclusion to the word "primer". My guess (and it's only that) is that the pronunciation "primmer", for the book, comes from the Latin pronunciation of "primus", which would have a "short i". Being in a school setting, the Latin pronunciation would carry to the book itself.
In the case of the word "prime", it would have lost its Latin pronunciation as it got absorbed into English, and thus any derivative words after that would have the "long i".
I don't have any proof that this is the case, just my 3/4 of a Linguistics degree talking.
I was pronouncing victuals it closer to "vick-chuals". And no, it's nowhere close to correct -- "vittles" is the only accepted pronunciation.
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