More English Masochism

 

Dear faithful Wordlady readers! As you can see, even when I am washing my hands I am thinking of what nifty info about the language I can share with you.

So this week's topic is the plant called chamomile. Or is it camomile? And if the former, what the heck is that silent h doing in there?  You will notice there is no h in the French version.

Like so many names for herbs and other foodstuffs, this is a word we borrowed from French after the Norman Conquest. Old French camomille came from late Latin chamomilla, which came from Greek khamaimēlon (literally "earth apple" from khamai earth + mēlon apple, because of its low-growing habit and the apple-like smell of its flowers). Old French did not believe in inserting unpronounced letters just because they happened to be in the Latin word.

So, in English too, from the 1200s to the 1500s, "camomile" was spelled as it was pronounced. But, as we have seen before, starting in the 1500s English had a mania for inserting silent letters in words to represent Latin etymology. "Camomile", like "debt" and "receipt" and so many other words, was influenced by this trend, but did not completely succumb to it. 

Or not yet. Traditionally, dictionaries will tell you, the United States prefers "chamomile" while everyone else prefers "camomile". However, a survey I did this week of an international group of editors revealed that a whopping 191 opted for "chamomile" versus only 23 for "camomile".  This trend crossed geographical boundaries, and is supported by various corpus searches, which show "camomile" beating a retreat. And this, despite the fact that non-American dictionaries list "camomile" first. Shows you how little influence dictionaries have when the users of the language get the bit in their teeth.

But WHY, when we had the choice between an easier-to-spell, more intuitive variant and a harder-to-spell, less intuitive one, did we have to opt for the latter? I can only conclude that we English speakers really are masochistic when it comes to spelling.

Another question about this word is: How is it pronounced? Does the last syllable sound like "mile" or like "meal"?

Here we have a quite stark North America / Rest of the World divide. My survey revealed the following:

US: Overwhelmingly "meal"
UK, Ireland, Australia: Overwhelmingly, almost exclusively "mile"

This meant, of course, that Canadians had to do their usual thing and be split more or less down the middle, with a slight preference for "mile".

Interestingly, a couple of Texans and a smattering of others had a pronunciation not listed in dictionaries: "mill". 

This pronunciation difference may be a result of the Great Vowel Shift. Before the 1500s, "camomile" (and "mile") were pronounced like modern "meal". Then the shift happened, but perhaps it didn't affect "camomile" as quickly as it affected "mile" and so the earlier version came over to North America. I used to think "camomeel" was an affectation but I should stop being so judgemental.

For just a few of our many other silent letters in English, please see this post:
http://katherinebarber.blogspot.ca/2014/11/silent-letters-in-english-series.html

How do you say "primer"?

A correspondent has inquired about the pronunciation of the word "primer" in the "introductory textbook" sense. 

He noticed that it is often pronounced (or, in his view, mispronounced) "primmer" on the CBC, and feels that this "new" pronunciation is an error introduced by American influence and mindlessly perpetuated by Canadians.

He will no doubt be surprised to learn that nothing could be further from the truth.

"Primmer" is the original pronunciation, and much older than "pry-mer", which seems to date only from the 19th century, likely under the influence of both the spelling, once mass literacy became established, and of the "paint" homonym. There are reasons having to do with the Great Vowel Shift which account for the difference in vowel between "prime" and "primer", but you're probably sick of the GVS by now so I will spare you the details.

As we have seen before with many British/North American differences, older pronunciations and usages brought over here when the first English settlers arrived have often survived on this side of the pond, whereas they have subsequently been corrupted by the British (see this post about herb/erb  and this one about height/heighth, for instance). I use the word "corrupt" in the dispassionate linguistic sense of "change" (but also because I like to provoke people!).

The Oxford English Dictionary notes that both pronunciations are in use on both sides of the Atlantic, though "pry-mer" is more common in Britain and "primmer" in the US. The Canadian Oxford also includes both pronunciations, with "pry-mer" first. But my father, for one, pronounced it "primmer".

"Primer" in this sense has quite an interesting history. It comes from a medieval Latin word primarium (a prayer book for lay people).  These were often used to teach children how to read, and these "primers" soon became so associated with children's learning that the "first reader" connotations took over from the "prayerbook" connotations of the word. Even after prayers were removed altogether, the word "primer" was still applied to elementary reading books.

I don't think we use "primer" anymore for first readers. It sounds very one-room-schoolhouse to me. But I was surprised to see the types of books that are called primers in this day and age:

A Programmer's Guide to Java SE 8 Certification: A Comprehensive Primer

 

Multivariate Statistical Methods: A Primer

Feminist Legal Theory (Second Edition): A Primer

Neuropsychological Evaluation of Medically Unexplained Symptoms: Assessment Primer

In fact, primers nowadays seem still to be introductory textbooks, but usually of very advanced, highly technical subject matter. We've come a long way from

 

Would you use the word "primer"? And if so, how would you pronounce it?

 

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