asimmer = simmer?

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asimmer = simmer? but it only can be used in poems?

Context:
Beans asimmer on a beanstalk flame
From inside the pot expressed their ire:
“Alive we sprouted on a single root--
What’s your rush to cook us on the fire?”

Translated by Moss Roberts.

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Type: Question • Score: 0 • Views: 855 • Replies: 8

[+3] - contrex - 09/21/2009With some verbs we can form an adjective by preceding adding the letter 'a' to the start of the infinitive form. We can also form adjectives by preceding certain other adjectives with a. The a -...

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@oristarA,

I don't think so. My grandmother used to say it - she'd say something like, 'I smell somethin' asimmerin' on the stove.'
But she was from Texas. It might be a colloquialism or idiom native to people from a certain part of the country who speak a different dialect than I do.

I would never say 'asimmer' - it wouldn't come naturally to me - but I have heard older, southern (US) people say it outside of poetry and it sounded natural to my ear when they said it.

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With some verbs we can form an adjective by preceding adding the letter 'a' to the start of the infinitive form. We can also form adjectives by preceding certain other adjectives with a.

The a - ('a' and a hyphen) form using a gerund e.g. "a-crying" is effectively obsolete outside poetry in standard English.

Thus:

afloat = floating
awing = flying (e.g. of birds)
alight = lighted (on fire)
afire = burning
across = crosswise (from side to side)
along = lengthwise (from end to end)
abuzz = buzzing

(many more)

and

asimmer = simmering (on a stove)

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Thank you both

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@oristarA,

No, it and other variations are used in casual friendly speech to effect a real down home feeling, Oristar.

Somethin' good's a cookin' on the stove.

Somethin' good's a comin my way.

somethin' sometimes even further reduced to Sumin'.

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JTT's examples are all USA dialect.

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and not my US dialect. they;re probably some sort of regionalism, not upper Midwestern or Massachusetts. And contrex is right, "asimmer" would be "simmering", not "simmer"

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@contrex,

contrex wrote:

With some verbs we can form an adjective by preceding adding the letter 'a' to the start of the infinitive form. We can also form adjectives by preceding certain other adjectives with a.

The a - ('a' and a hyphen) form using a gerund e.g. "a-crying" is effectively obsolete outside poetry in standard English.

Thus:

afloat = floating
awing = flying (e.g. of birds)
alight = lighted (on fire)
afire = burning
across = crosswise (from side to side)
along = lengthwise (from end to end)
abuzz = buzzing

(many more)

and

asimmer = simmering (on a stove)

Excellent!

By the by, I wonder whether that "by preceding adding" should be " by precedingly adding ."

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@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

By the by, I wonder whether that "by preceding adding" should be " by precedingly adding ."

No, (since I made the error 3 years ago, I can say this) merely delete "adding".

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asimmer = simmer?

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