[Ads-l] Heard: "primer"

[Laurence Horn]

I always pronounced it pr[aI]mer growing up, like the stuff you put on the walls as an aperitif for paint; I figured if God wanted us to pronounce it as pr[I]mer He would have spelled it with two m's. But later began to realize that lots of other people call it a [prIm at r] despite the spelling.  Now I'm just not sure, so I avoid the word, which usually isn't too hard to do, even here in the land of Noah Webster's Blue Backed Speller and New England Primer.  

LH

> On Oct 22, 2015, at 4:34 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> "His record is a pr[aI]mer of small-time crookery."
> 
> When I was in the first grade, the first two "Dick and Jane" book(let)s
> were referred to as the "pre-pr[I]mer" and the "pr[I]mer."
> 
> -- 
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
> 
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