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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2019 2:59:08 GMT
My husband’s mother spoke French until she was 5 and her roots are in French Canadian ( or Acadian).
She would use pritnear or pretnear, instead of pretty near.
My grandmother’s people used it too
It is short for any French phrase?
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Post by Delta Dawn on Mar 6, 2019 3:04:38 GMT
I ask BFF who is Acadian. It might take a while to answer
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Post by Delta Dawn on Mar 6, 2019 3:05:55 GMT
Pretnear means pretty near as per BFF. She was Waiting for a text from me. Go figure.
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Post by Basket1lady on Mar 6, 2019 3:16:20 GMT
It’s probably just how it sounds with French pronunciation. French words sound like the all run together, without the hard syllable decisions that you hear with English. Pres (with an accent above the e). Assez proche is the translation for pretty near.
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AmandaA
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Post by AmandaA on Mar 6, 2019 3:37:47 GMT
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gsquaredmom
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Post by gsquaredmom on Mar 6, 2019 3:49:06 GMT
I heard this growing up outside Chicago in Indiana. No one was French. It was often from my friends who came from Tennessee or Alabama, but I don’t know if it’s common there. I also heard it from others. Everyone knew it meant pretty near.
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Post by mikklynn on Mar 6, 2019 13:33:41 GMT
I'm heard DH's farmer relatives in western MN say that. In their context it means pretty near or almost.
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miyooper2b
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Jun 27, 2014 15:38:05 GMT
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Post by miyooper2b on Mar 6, 2019 13:37:17 GMT
My great-grandmother used to use that phrase. We lived in mid-Michigan but no one in our family was French. I had completely forgot about that until you posted!
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Post by beepdave on Mar 6, 2019 13:39:46 GMT
My husband's relatives say this as well. I've always said it's part of the "lazy English" they use.
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Post by Peace Sign on Mar 6, 2019 13:43:09 GMT
not french. just a colloquialism.
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kibblesandbits
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Post by kibblesandbits on Mar 6, 2019 14:30:22 GMT
My great-grandmother used to use that phrase. We lived in mid-Michigan but no one in our family was French. I had completely forgot about that until you posted! yeah, this. It is a very rural phrase. French . . .  |
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Post by mustlovecats on Mar 6, 2019 14:35:16 GMT
“Purt’ near” is also a term in some regional American southern dialect as well.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2019 15:16:54 GMT
Lots of older people in Oklahoma use pretnear too. Easter parts of our state were settled by early french settlers. I doubt it is a french phrase, at best it is english influenced by a quasi-french accent.
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Post by sleepingbooty on Mar 7, 2019 15:18:54 GMT
She would use pritnear or pretnear, instead of pretty near. It is short for any French phrase? Thanks for tagging me, AmandaA .  Happy to help out with the nature of French language but I'm not Canadian French, meaning I can't attest for their own dialectal grammar.
Nope, not French. At all. "Prit" is only known to us for the German glue brand, Pritt, or the third singular person of the rarely used imperfect subjonctive of the verb 'prendre' (to take), il/elle prît. "Near" doesn't stand for anything in French either nor would the E-A sequence be pronounced like an [ i ] sound.
Sounds like a typical case of syncope AKA dropped sound (in this case, final syllable for certain words). These are regional linguistic phenomenons (pronounciation), not actually driven by language itself. Hope this helps to clarify the matter. |
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Post by crimsoncat05 on Mar 7, 2019 15:36:05 GMT
I heard this growing up outside Chicago in Indiana. No one was French. It was often from my friends who came from Tennessee or Alabama, but I don’t know if it’s common there. I also heard it from others. Everyone knew it meant pretty near. this phrase is something I heard growing up in small town NW Illinois... no one was even remotely close to French, there. I think it's more of a colloquialism than it is related to a foreign language. |
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carhoch
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Post by carhoch on Mar 7, 2019 15:52:44 GMT
My mother tongue is French ,Prêt mean near in French and I would translate pretty near as tous prêt .
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Post by cmhs on Mar 7, 2019 15:54:52 GMT
I'm originally from NW Indiana and heard this a lot growing up. Not French. We always said it with a fake southern accent.
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Post by Basket1lady on Mar 7, 2019 16:25:21 GMT
My mother tongue is French ,Prêt mean near in French and I would translate pretty near as tous prêt . Doesn’t pret (with the accent) mean ready? I thought pres (with the accent) means near? It’s been years, but I used to teach French in an elementary school. |
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Happy to help out with the nature of French language but I'm not Canadian French, meaning I can't attest for their own dialectal grammar. 
