Fun with –er

Fun with –er
RAMBLINGS
By Dr LIM CHIN LAM

SOMETIMES for the sheer hell of it, sometimes out of curiosity, I take a look at a word and dissect and analyse it. Believe me, it can be fun.

For good measure, I sometimes also look up prefixes and suffixes. For now, I want to share some observations of suffixes, those little word-endings that yield derivatives when added to existing words – specifically the ubiquitous –er, perhaps the most common of them all in the English language.

First, take a look at some words that end in –er: banner, banter, barber, beaver, buffer, chamber, clinker, coffer, corner, cucumber.

However, note that these are words in their own right and that the –er ending is not a suffix. On the other hand, there are thousands of words which carry the –er suffix, as summarised below.

1) Suffix –er added to verbs to form agent nouns

Foremost among the –er words are the agent nouns. An agent noun describes the person or instrument connected with the act denoted by the verb, e.g. walk – walker, run – runner, fly – flier.

Some other examples: avenger, bearer, copier (the agent instrument, as compared with copyist, the agent person), giver, go-getter, informer (which is sometimes distinguished from informant), late-comer, movie-goer, newcomer, performer, teacher, wrong-doer.

But there are exceptions. Analyse the noun do-gooder, where the suffix is added to the noun good in the compound word – instead of to the verb do as would be in the non-existent alternative, good-doer.

2) Variants of –er for agent nouns

i) Variant -or

The common –er is a native English suffix which serves as the regular formative of agent nouns, but there are many variants or equivalents.

The variant –or occurs in nouns which were originally Latin (orator) or are added to words formed from a Latin stem (advisor, director, impostor, survivor, visitor), but are now also used in words of other origins (bailor, sailor).

ii) Variants –ier, -yer

Another variant of the –er agent noun is –ier (as in cashier, financier, haulier, hotelier).

This variant itself has a variant, the Middle English –yer, which appears in such words as lawyer and sawyer.

iii) Still other variants of –er

There are still other variants – -ior (war/warrior), -iour (save/saviour, cf. saver as in life-saver), -itor (compete/competitor), -itioner (practice/practitioner), -eur, in French or French-derived words (chanteur, entrepreneur, provocateur, restaurateur, saboteur).

The suffix –eer is a special variant – it is added to both verbs and nouns to denote a person concerned with or engaged in a certain activity (auctioneer, engineer, pamphleteer), sometimes with a sinister or unpleasant connotation (commandeer cf. commander, domineer, mutineer, profiteer, racketeer).

3) Feminine forms of agent nouns

In this connection, there are two sets of suffixes to differentiate the genders of agent nouns, viz. –er/-ess (waiter/waitress, actor/actress) and the French-derived -eur/-euse (chanteur/chanteuse, danseur/danseuse, masseur/masseuse) and -tor/-trix (aviator/aviatrix, dominator/dominatrix).

4) The –er suffix added to nouns to form non-agent nouns

Consider, for example, the word ouster. It is not an agent noun in that it does not denote someone who ousts someone else from the latter’s place or position. Rather, it denotes an action or process or an instance of the act.
Other nouns in a similar vein are breather, disclaimer, howler, rejoinder, reminder, waiver.

Other non-agent nouns include those where the suffix denotes

1) a person associated with a position or office (council/councillor, senate/senator);

2) a person associated with his place of origin (Berliner, burgher, easterner, Hollander, islander, Londoner, mainlander, out-of-towner, villager);

3) a person associated with the object of his occupation or labour (hatter, moonshiner, tiler);

4) a person or thing concerned or associated with something (astronomer, footballer, grocer, hostler or ostler);

5) a person or thing that has a specified attribute or form (double-decker, six-footer, three-wheeler); and

6) a movie genre (actioner, sleeper, suspenser, tear-jerker, thriller, yawner).

5) Suffix added to adjective

When added to an adjective, the –er suffix forms nouns signified by the adjectives (foreign/foreigner, lone/loner, strange/stranger).

It also forms the comparative degree of the adjective (fast/faster, higher/higher, strong/stronger).

6) Suffix occurring in verbs

Finally, the –er suffix forms frequentative verbs (flicker, flutter, glimmer, glitter, patter, shudder).