174
The -er suffix (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago by orphiebaby@lemm.ee to c/general@lemmy.world
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Transcript:

What the heck is with the "-er" suffix?

"I'm a witcher."

"What does a witcher do?"

"I ~~create~~ ~~watch~~ ~~catch~~ ~~breed~~ ~~f***~~ hunt witches."

"I'm a birder."

"What does a birder do?"

"I ~~create~~ ~~catch~~ ~~hunt~~ ~~breed~~ ~~f***~~ watch birds."

"Actually I think several of those could apply..."

I think the confusing-ass formula is this:

A [word1]er is a [word2]er of [word1]s.

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[-] odium@programming.dev 36 points 1 year ago

Geralt of rivia is a witcher who fucks witches

[-] CptEnder@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

Lol yeah was gonna say post got it wrong, Witchers don't hunt witches they hunt monsters.

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago

I think create and breed are the only ones that don't apply there.

[-] MBM@lemmings.world 31 points 1 year ago

Isn't witcher just a word that was made up for (the English translation of) the Witcher series?

[-] shneancy@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

yes, the word wiedźmin was also made up so why not

[-] Siethron@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

So a mother is someone who watches moths?

[-] Dumbkid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago

They create moths

[-] Neato@ttrpg.network 19 points 1 year ago

So what's a "fucker"?

[-] orphiebaby@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

A fucker of fucks, clearly.

[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago

A giver of fucks

[-] recapitated@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

A fuck hunter

[-] XTL@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

One who fucks.

[-] Boinkage@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Witcher is a silly thing to use as your first example, it's a made up word for a translated book. I can't think of another word that behaves like that. Making a mountain of a made up molehill. A Molehiller, I would call you.

[-] lefixxx@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

~~he is actually a hexer in his native language~~

[-] shneancy@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

wiedźmin? what? no, who told you that? get a refund or something

wiedźma - witch

witcher is as literal of a translation as you can get

[-] magikmw@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah and wiedźma has the same root as wiedzieć and to know in proto indo-european. He's a man of knowledge. About killing things out of this world.

Canonically witchers world coexists in our own multiverse and was similiar to our own reality, but thanks to some bonduary bluring between cosmic realms got tainted hundreds years ago by otherwordly magic and monsters.

So the whole witcher, wiedźmin name just indicates knowledge, an is likely a name given to them by common people instead of being an endonym.

[-] lefixxx@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Huh some YouTuber I can't remember. TIL

[-] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 12 points 1 year ago

A bouncer is a bouncer of bounce?

[-] rsuri@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

A bouncer is a creator of bounce

[-] orphiebaby@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, [word2] is probably not the same as [word1].

As an aside, the wonderful thing about Tiggers, is that Tiggers are tiggers of tiggs!

[-] 3volver@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

A badger verifies badge legitimacy.

[-] orphiebaby@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Or maybe he gives badges. Time to go find one O:

[-] Cosmos7349@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Wait so what's the word for "I f*** witches"? Asking for a friend.

[-] orphiebaby@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago

"Witchbroomer", I think.

Although "Witchf***er" would make a great band name.

[-] Cosmos7349@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

I would go see that band. I expect heavy+aggressive drums and electric guitar.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I've always thought of it as "Xer" = "someone who Xes". X should be a verb. Builders build. Welders weld. Miners mine.

In the case of birder, birding is an activity, which I guess makes "bird" a verb ("to go birding"). "Witcher" was made up for the setting, but I guess "witch" is similarly a verb there.

[-] orphiebaby@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

What is "birding"? According to dictionary, it's breed, catch, or watch. Fishers fish, right? What is "to fish" really, though? To swim? To be a fish? I mean, you can't extrapolate it from the common verb as a rule, because that doesn't apply to "birding", does it?

So no, I don't think your over-simplification works.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

It's not an over-simplification. This is literally just what the -er suffix does, besides the unrelated usage to make comparisons like "louder". Look up "agent noun" for more info.

What is “birding”? According to dictionary, it’s breed, catch, or watch.

The common usage is to watch birds. The extension of the verb "bird" into "birder" is also commonly understood to mean someone who watches birds.

What is “to fish” really, though? To swim? To be a fish?

What? It means to catch fish. I've never heard any other meaning? Again, it's not based on what a fish does, it's based on what the verb "fish" means, which is to catch fish.

I mean, you can’t extrapolate it from the common verb as a rule, because that doesn’t apply to “birding”, does it?

Ignoring the fact that "bird" is a verb with a fairly well-understood meaning, the reason "birder" or any other -er words are ambiguous is because the verbs are ambiguous. Words have multiple meanings... that's just something that they do. That doesn't change the overall rule that "birder" means "someone who birds", it just means you have to figure out which meaning of "bird" (as a verb) it's using.

[-] Stern@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I'm a lemmer.

[-] Sebeck012@feddit.nl 6 points 1 year ago

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/-er

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

It's a contraction where the second word is dropped, because what else would you do with them?

Centuries go by, and sometimes it's no longer the most obvious. But the contraction has already been accepted

[-] theRealBassist@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

It's definitely not a contraction.

-er is the agent suffix in English. Effectively it turns words into those who do something related to that word.

Hawk > Hawker = One who "hawks" Run > Runner = One who "runs"

In principle this implies the existance of a verbal form of the root word, such as the two above examples.

Witcher, as used by the fantasy series, is a weird one because it's actually not related to the agent suffix.

The Polish title of The Witcher is Wiedźma which just means "witch". When it was translated to English they adopted "witcher" as a masculine form to the oft feminine "witch" by using the ability for the -er suffix to indicate a profession or association with a noun in English i.e. Cash > Cashier, someone who handles cash/payments (actually derived from french with the -ier suffix, but point still stands). In the cass of Witcher it is one who works as/with witches or else one who is associated with Witches.

[-] orphiebaby@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

I don't know why anyone downvoted you.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Hawk > Hawker = One who “hawks”

What do they do with the Hawk?

They hunt with it, they're a "hawk hunter".

Run > Runner = One who “runs”

https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/noun-verb-identify

[-] Todd_cross@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 year ago

Hawk can be a verb meaning "to hunt with a hawk". It can also be a verb meaning "To peddle goods aggressively, especially by calling out. "

If they're hawking, i.e. hunting with a hawk, then they're a hawker.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Hawk can be a verb meaning “to hunt with a hawk”.

Because over time, we dropped the second word ...

An the second usage is "hock"

Which is a completely different word... People used "hawk" for selling because, well people don't always know what they're doing. But language evolves. Use "literally" to mean "figuratively" enough, and dictionaries start listing that as an option.

Because dictionaries aren't to teach people how to speak, they're for people trying to understand what someone else said.

Which is literally my whole point.

Over centuries, words change

https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/19/hock-hawk/

But you typed that very confidently, so you got that going for you at least.

[-] Dangdoggo@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Hawk is also a verb. Many words have more than one uses.

[-] XTL@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

What was contracted?

[-] SrTobi@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

What's the feminine form? Witchess?

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Is -er masculine?

[-] shasta@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Nope because females are not allowed!

[-] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I was under the impression that Witcher is to be interpreted as the male form of Witch - a Witchman, basically. I think they even call Geralt a Witchman a few times in the games, come to think of it.

this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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