Talk:kindergartner

RFV discussion: September 2016–April 2017

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kindergartner

As an American English speaker, I've never encountered this to mean kindergarten teacher, only ever kindergarten student.

Is this a pondian difference? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:16, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

• I have never seen this word used in the UK with either meaning. Not listed in the OED. I would have guessed it was the child rather than the teacher. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:13, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
  • As an en-US speaker I agree that this term (which I'd be more likely to spell kindergartener—an entry which also has both definitions, BTW) refers to a child. Nevertheless, the German word Kindergärtner does refer to the teacher, so maybe some English speakers use it that way too. SemperBlotto, you're the one who added the sense to both entries (over ten years ago); do you remember where you got it from? Incidentally, in Swiss German the child is apparently called Kindergärtler (de). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:58, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
    • I can't remember what I did yesterday, let alone 10 years ago! SemperBlotto (talk) 20:12, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Kindergarten isn't even used in the UK. Not that I'm aware of. Never heard it here ever. Renard Migrant (talk) 19:40, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

• I remember hearing it (or more probably kindergarden) when I was very young - I think it was a sort of Sunday school for very young children. SemperBlotto (talk) 20:12, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Here in New Zealand, it refers to what an American would call preschool. Kiwima (talk) 20:48, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

• Kindergarten is most definitely used in the UK. I have never heard of kindergartner though. Mihia (talk) 02:50, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

It's citable: The Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Educational Association, Volume 24 (1886) (US), New York Education, Volumes 3-4 (1900), and The Development of Early Childhood Education in Europe and North America (2015) (if "German kindergartener" refers to a kindergarten teacher, instead of a scholar of kindergartens or something). Sorry that I don't have time to properly write them up, but it seem real, if infrequent and/or archaic.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:19, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

• Fascinating. I was also quite surprised to see that Merriam-Webster lists the teacher sense as the primary one in their entry for the term. Surely this is dated at best?

Are there any other American English speakers reading this who are commonly acquainted with the teacher sense in modern parlance? Every other [SCHOOL TYPE] + -er variant that I can think of means the student: compare high schooler, middle schooler, elementary schooler, etc. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 04:55, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps use of this word to mean "teacher" derives from the fact that the second element is transparently "garden", and a "gardener" is the person who tends plants (not the plants that are tended). I note that schooler includes an agent noun sense "one who provides schooling, teacher". - -sche (discuss) 00:39, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: What you seem to be citing is for the spelling kindergartener rather than the nominated kindergartner, with no e before "ner". Do you have similar luck with the nominated spelling? --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:23, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Good catch, that those are two different spellings. I've managed to cite the "teacher" sense of kindergartner, and kindergartner is the more common spelling (for all senses) per ngrams, so I've centralized the content and translations in that entry. - -sche (discuss) 05:39, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

RFV passed (tag has already been removed).__Gamren (talk) 19:53, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Is this really the more common spelling? And pronunciation?

I could simply be wrong about the spelling .... it's not a word I've used much since I was one .... but I'd be more surprised to find out that syncope of the e (whether it's spelled or not) is the default pronunciation. Ive only ever heard this with five syllables, exactly as one would expect from kindergarten + -er. —Soap— 23:43, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

I think when our brains recognize a word, they don't always notice or bother to record statistics on how common one variant vs another is (though sometimes they do, obviously; sometimes a pronunciation stands out every time we hear it, etc), which might be why you don't recall hearing it with 4 syllables, but probably have. At Ngrams, -tn- is more common than -ten-, sometimes markedly so. Dictionary.com lemmatizes kindergartner and then has "or kindergartener" under that entry, and lists only the pronunciation with /-t.n-/ and /-d.n-/. Merriam-Webster lemmatizes kindergartner (with the 4-syllable pronunciation) and says "or less commonly kindergartener" (with the 5-syllable pronunciation). Garner's Modern American Usage says "kindergartner is the standard spelling. Kindergartener is a variant." Lexico, on the contrary, lemmatizes kindergartener and says "also kindergartner" (and marks the whole entry as "North American", and gives the pronunciation as /-t(ə)n-/), which raises the idea that it could be an American-vs-British thing, but Ngrams suggests kindergartner is more common in both American and British English, and Garner's Modern English Usage (2016, which covers British as well as American and other world Englishes, albeit perhaps relying on that very Ngrams data) says "kindergartner has been the standard spelling since the 19th century. Kindergartener is a variant." - -sche (discuss) 04:15, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay thank you. Rather than biting on the number of syllables, I should have made a point about /t/ versus /d/ ... to me, the word gardener is mentally three syllables, but I cant say I would notice the difference between [ˈɡɑɹdn̩ɚ] (with a syllabic consonant) and [ˈɡɑɹdnɚ] (without it) in connected speech. So, what I mean to say is that I've only heard the word kindergartener, spelling unimportant, with the same pattern as the word gardener, which absolutely never has a voiceless [t]. If we could add the pronunciation patterned after gardener that would be nice. If not, I would at least like to add the (ə) into our pronunciation, so long as we are clear that it follows the speech pattern of words like batter, not like cotton .... that is, that it doesnt have a voiceless [t] (unless someone actually does pronounce it that way). Thanks, —Soap— 12:18, 11 April 2021 (UTC)