I swear my dad used the word ‘primer’ as a verb, as in “I’m going to primer the walls before painting” or “Have you primered the walls yet?”
But I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else use it this way, and recently when I used it as a verb, I was corrected. I tried looking it up, but no luck. Everywhere I looked, ‘primer’ is only a noun, and the verb is prime.
I’m starting to think this is one my old man’s idiosyncrasies that he passed on to me.
Well… at this point, the English language has pretty much accepted that any noun can be used in place of a verb. “Primer the walls” would clearly mean “Apply primer to the walls.”
On the other hand, this particular example is just taking it too far. Primer is named because it is the stuff with which you prime the walls.
You prime the walls. You use primer to do it. You do not primer the walls.
That’s a common pattern of “verbing” a noun, even if that particular usage hasn’t caught on widely and “prime” is more commonly accepted.
I use similar patterns pretty often with lab materials and equipment. If I’m reading a sample in, say, a turbo encabulator, I’ll say that I’m turboencabulating it. Or if I’m adding a transmogrifase enzyme to a sample, I’ll say that I’m transmogrifasing it.
You can verb any noun.
you could. Whether you should is another question. Involving proper speaking, good taste, etc.
Reminds me of a conversation I had in college.
Friend: You can verb any noun.
Me: What, no.
Friend: No, you really can.
Me: Fine. Verb phonebook
Friend: Okay. “She kept arguing so I phonebooked her right in the face.”
Me: :dubious:
It’s perfectly cromulent American English usage.
I used it today several times that way. I paint the walls with paint, so why not primer the walls with primer?
A: We need that shop’s address.
B: So, let’s Google it.
A: The Internet is down.
B: So, let’s phonebook it.
And vice versa, he phoned in.
Ha!
You youngsters don’t know this, but phonebooked was a term decades ago.
It referred to a technique used by police to prevent repercussions from police ‘interrogations’. Basically, before you whack a prisoner over the head with your nightstick, you hold a phonebook upside his head. The force of your blow is still transmitted to their head, but it doesn’t leave clearly identifiable nightstick marks.
I first heard it in the fall of 1968, from friends returning from the Democratic Convention in Chicago, and the anti-Vietnam-war demonstrations there. He said Mayor Daley’s Chicago police were well trained in that technique.
If you primer your walls, then the stuff you do it with is a primerer. Or you, the person doing it, are the primerer.
Then could the wall also be called the “primee”?
Isn’t the English language fun? You can twist almost any rule, and make up new words, and still have it mostly understandable.
I remember an old Cheech & Chong routine–I think it was from the Big Bambu album–where they are soldiers in Vietnam and Cheech avoids some unpleasant task by saying “We’ve got to, um, re-primer the jeep, yeah!” That’s the only time I’ve ever heard it used as a verb.
I was going to say, if the primerer (the person doing it) slathers himself on the wall, he becomes the primeree .
Like, in New Hampshire and so on?
“primer the car” brings back a lot of results from within the auto industry and on car forums. “reprimer the car” also gets a few mentions.
I’m a native speaker of English who grew up in the Southeastern US. I have heard “Primer the walls” many many times. I have never heard an English-speaking person say “Prime the walls”, not even once. Granted, I’m not a painter, and I don’t hang around at construction sites, so my experience is limited. Whenever I hear “Prime the _____” the word I expect to hear next is either “pump” or “carburetor”.
Dictionary.com says “primer” can be an adjective, a noun, or a verb. Definition #30 (out of 34) says it’s a VERB meaning “to cover (a surface) with a preparatory coat or color, as in painting.”
This might be a regional thing. I’m also from the Southeast and I’ve heard it many times and never given it a second thought. This is the first time it ever occurred to me that it might not be proper English.
Thank you! I agree with you on the “Prime the ____” thing. You prime pumps, you primer walls. At least that’s how I grew up hearing it. Now at least I know my dad and I aren’t the only ones saying it like this.