4 ms·

> This is my garden, and I intend to putter. I was about about to correct that use of "putter" as a typo, but it seems it's a USAism. Never seen that before. I

> This is my garden, and I intend to putter. I was about about to correct that use of "putter" as a typo, but it seems it's a USAism. Never seen that before. I'd always thought machines/engines putter, gardeners potter. I put it to the super-accurate Purported Google Results Test: putter in my garden - 7 million potter in my garden - 142 million putter around - 9 million potter around - 363 million putter about - 49 million potter about - 581 million Although when I put on a USA accent, there's not very much difference between my "potter" and "putter", maybe that's something to do with "putter" apparently being the US spelling.

elliotec 6y ago
The writer is from South Africa, as mentioned in the post. "Putter about" is definitely not a USAism, it's an English expression used throughout the anglophone world that can be spelled "putter" or "potter," meaning the same thing. I've only heard it pronounced "putter" personally. The stats are interesting!
- yesenadam 6y ago
  Yeah you're right. "Puttering about", with that sense of a machine chugging along, seems a different thing to pottering. Pottering in a garden seems more like patiently tinkering with something than continually moving from place to place.
- dagw 6y ago
  "putter" or "potter," meaning the same thing. I don't think they mean the same in British English. My motorboat "putters about the lake" while I "potter about in my garden". But I could be wrong.
  - jfk13 6y ago
    I would have assumed "putter" (in this sense) is onomatopoeic, from the sound of a small engine running slowly. "Potter", OTOH, comes from a word for poking or prodding at the ground (hence appropriate for gardening). (I suppose with the right kind of ride-on mower, it's possible to "putter about the garden" with appropriate sound effects!) Checking OED citations, though, it seems the "putter" form (as a variant of "potter", distinct from the sound of an engine "puttering") does have a similar history (both go back to the 1820s). Still, I'd agree that "potter about the garden" is by far the more common usage.
joshuahughes 6y ago
Before today, I’d only ever heard ‘putter’ used to refer to the golf club you use for ‘putting’...
OJFord 6y ago
Ha, glad I'm not the only one, I went directly to Wiktionary after finishing the article, which doesn't mark it 'chiefly US' or anything, and gives RP IPA. Which contains another surprise, for me anyway - it's not pronounced like the golf club, but starting like 'put' (that over there) or 'foot'.
- meatmanek 6y ago
  Apple's Dictionary.app, which for me pulls from the New Oxford American Dictionary, does mention that potter is the British version: > put·ter³ | ˈpədər | (British potter) > verb [no object] North American > occupy oneself in a desultory but pleasant manner, doing a number of small tasks or not concentrating on anything particular: early morning is the best time of the day to putter around in the garden. > • [with adverbial of direction] move or go in a casual, unhurried way: the duck putters on the surface of the pond. and defines potter as: > verb British > another term for putter³. (It also has all 3 definitions of putter - golf, engine, gardening - pronounced the same way: ˈpədər)
  - yesenadam 6y ago
    Thanks. Hehe that's amusingly parochial. ("Whole World except USA" they like to call "British", and 'potter' is merely 'another term for putter'. Everything is inside-out.)
moosebear847 6y ago
This is me for a sec every time I see UK collective plural nouns, for example, 'Apple have 10k employees'. Actually now that I think about it, people from Britain must feel like something's off even MORE often from this difference than americans, seeing as lots of content online is US english.
emddudley 6y ago
I'm from the U.S. and the phrases "potter around" and "potter in the garden" are new to me. I have always used "putter". My pronunciation of putter is "puh-ter" (same sound as under) and potter is "pah-ter" (same sound as father).

elliotec 6y ago

The writer is from South Africa, as mentioned in the post. "Putter about" is definitely not a USAism, it's an English expression used throughout the anglophone world that can be spelled "putter" or "potter," meaning the same thing. I've only heard it pronounced "putter" personally. The stats are interesting!

yesenadam 6y ago
Yeah you're right. "Puttering about", with that sense of a machine chugging along, seems a different thing to pottering. Pottering in a garden seems more like patiently tinkering with something than continually moving from place to place.
dagw 6y ago
"putter" or "potter," meaning the same thing. I don't think they mean the same in British English. My motorboat "putters about the lake" while I "potter about in my garden". But I could be wrong.
- jfk13 6y ago
  I would have assumed "putter" (in this sense) is onomatopoeic, from the sound of a small engine running slowly. "Potter", OTOH, comes from a word for poking or prodding at the ground (hence appropriate for gardening). (I suppose with the right kind of ride-on mower, it's possible to "putter about the garden" with appropriate sound effects!) Checking OED citations, though, it seems the "putter" form (as a variant of "potter", distinct from the sound of an engine "puttering") does have a similar history (both go back to the 1820s). Still, I'd agree that "potter about the garden" is by far the more common usage.

joshuahughes 6y ago

Before today, I’d only ever heard ‘putter’ used to refer to the golf club you use for ‘putting’...

OJFord 6y ago

Ha, glad I'm not the only one, I went directly to Wiktionary after finishing the article, which doesn't mark it 'chiefly US' or anything, and gives RP IPA. Which contains another surprise, for me anyway - it's not pronounced like the golf club, but starting like 'put' (that over there) or 'foot'.

meatmanek 6y ago
Apple's Dictionary.app, which for me pulls from the New Oxford American Dictionary, does mention that potter is the British version: > put·ter³ | ˈpədər | (British potter) > verb [no object] North American > occupy oneself in a desultory but pleasant manner, doing a number of small tasks or not concentrating on anything particular: early morning is the best time of the day to putter around in the garden. > • [with adverbial of direction] move or go in a casual, unhurried way: the duck putters on the surface of the pond. and defines potter as: > verb British > another term for putter³. (It also has all 3 definitions of putter - golf, engine, gardening - pronounced the same way: ˈpədər)
- yesenadam 6y ago
  Thanks. Hehe that's amusingly parochial. ("Whole World except USA" they like to call "British", and 'potter' is merely 'another term for putter'. Everything is inside-out.)

moosebear847 6y ago

This is me for a sec every time I see UK collective plural nouns, for example, 'Apple have 10k employees'. Actually now that I think about it, people from Britain must feel like something's off even MORE often from this difference than americans, seeing as lots of content online is US english.

emddudley 6y ago

I'm from the U.S. and the phrases "potter around" and "potter in the garden" are new to me. I have always used "putter". My pronunciation of putter is "puh-ter" (same sound as under) and potter is "pah-ter" (same sound as father).