Thread: Поутру

I read an article here:

Ладога это особое место, которое легко влюбляет в себя. Ласковые лучи солнца пробуждают тебя навстречу новому дню)) И уже не можешь без таких рассветов по утру).

What is the meaning of по утру?
I know по утрам (dative plural) means "every morning", things that repeat regularly, but what if the time word is just singular?

поутру means the same as утром

I checked some examples, some are singuar, some are plural, but seems to be of the same type.

Examples from my Russian-Chinese Dictionary
по году не писал писем
сидеть над книгой по целым дням
Не видал его по целым неделям

In my Russian-Chinese dictionary it says on по + dat. in this meaning: "during the whole period, meaning the duration/length of time the action lasts".

I wonder if по утру means something like "the whole morning", thus the above sentence "you cannot be without the daybreak for the whole morning."

But утром does not always mean something that lasts the whole morning, like утром я чищу зубы.

Am I correct?

Originally Posted by wonlon

I checked some examples, some are singuar, some are plural, but seems to be of the same type.

по году не писал писем
сидеть над книгой по целым дням
Не видал его по целым неделям

In my Russian-Chinese dictionary it says on по + dat. in this meaning: "during the whole period, meaning the duration/length of time the action lasts".

I wonder if по утру means something like "the whole morning", thus the above sentence "you cannot be without the daybreak for the whole morning."

But утром does not always mean something that lasts the whole morning, like утром я чищу зубы.

Am I correct?

What's that in bold? I'm afraid none of that makes much sense.

Годами не писал писем - haven't/hasn't written letters for years.
Сидеть над книгой целыми днями - to sit reading the book for whole days.
Не видел его целую неделю - haven't/hasn't seen him for a week.

As noted, поутру is the same damn thing as утром - in the morning. That's pretty much it.

Note, if you want to say "in the mornings", then you have to say по утрам, you can't say утрами. I guess this is where по in the singular use of the expression comes from.

по году не писал писем
сидеть над книгой по целым дням
Не видал его по целым неделям

These sound so very old-fashioned that I do not recommend using them.
See iCake's post above for alternatives.

Originally Posted by Medved

These sound so very old-fashioned that I do not recommend using them.
See iCake's post above for alternatives.

They translate (from Chinese explanation) something like:
1. (Someone) has not written letters (to sb?) for one year.
2. to sit reading for days.
3. (Someone) haven't seen him for weeks.

I don't know if they are right or not, maybe the dictionary has some old-style examples, but I dare not challenge the dictionary.
However, the по утру sentence is from National Geographic just yesterday, is the writer using the words correctly?

1. Кто-то не писал писем годами
2. Сидеть над книгой целыми днями
3. Кто-то не видел его несколько недель. I suppose you can say неделями but sounds kind of off

The sentence from NG is okay, but the word is поутру, not по утру.

Hello wonlon!

According to a classic Орфографический словарь (Spelling dictionary) the correct spelling is поутру. And the stress is on the last syllable.

As far as I can see it's not an official NG article, but some blogger style comment on pictures. His/her phrasing is stylistically not impeccable. Well по утру is just incorrect spelling. So such authors and such comments should be always taken with a grain of salt (when it comes to correct spelling, style, grammar, etc.)

The neutral and most commonly used variant is утром (in the morning). You might encounter поутру in poetic texts, novels, so in terms of register this word is a bit more bookish.

Later I'll provide the link to a Spelling dictionary that can be downloaded (I would like to check some).

Originally Posted by wonlon

They translate (from Chinese explanation) something like:
1. (Someone) has not written letters (to sb?) for one year.
2. to sit reading for days.
3. (Someone) haven't seen him for weeks.

I don't know if they are right or not, maybe the dictionary has some old-style examples, but I dare not challenge the dictionary.
However, the по утру sentence is from National Geographic just yesterday, is the writer using the words correctly?

They are correct, but there are subtleties.

"по году не писал писем" would mean 'during some period, much longer than one year, he wrote on rare occasions, approximately 1 letter per year'.

сидеть над книгой по целым дням
To emphasize that during the period-much-longer-than-one-day the person spends most of the time on the reading, you indeed can say "сидеть над книгой/книгами по целым дням".
But most likely, you will see something different: "целыми днями", "с утра до ночи", "весь день напролёт", ...
Example of "по дню" (a quote from Internet): "гонять надо на каждом танке по дню, не меньше": you should drive each tank at least for the one whole day.

Не видал его по целым неделям
What the author wanted to say (again): They saw each other more than once, but the average duration, during which 'someone' did not see 'him', was several weeks.

wonlon,

Here is the link to Russian dictionaries: Словари и справочники русского языка для скачивания

you can download them for free and there are 2 additional links below when it says и многие другие словари и справочники. )

some of these dictionaries may seem hard to use for non-Native speakers, but some are good for any level (I actually downloaded all of them, it's like a small e-library with professional and very reliable sources)

your word Поутру is described very well in Скворцов Л.И. Большой толковый словарь правильной русской речи (book #21 in this list, see page 649), with several good usage examples from literature.