Welcome to Lemmy.World General!
This is a community for general discussion where you can get your bearings in the fediverse. Discuss topics & ask questions that don't seem to fit in any other community, or don't have an active community yet.
🪆 About Lemmy World
🧭 Finding Communities
Feel free to ask here or over in: [email protected]!
Also keep an eye on:
For more involved tools to find communities to join: check out Lemmyverse and Feddit Lemmy Community Browser!
💬 Additional Discussion Focused Communities:
Rules
Remember, Lemmy World rules also apply here.
0. See: Rules for Users.
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.
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.
What's the feminine form? Witchess?
Is -er masculine?
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.
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.
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.
Wow, everything I said just went completely over your head. Just because you already know what "to fish" means doesn't mean that it can be extrapolated from the word by someone who doesn't already know what it means.
No, everything you said was addressed and then you brought up a different issue that was supposedly your real point all along (and that I did also address). I see you've opted for the wheeled goalposts for easier mobility. Is this an April Fool's prank?
To be clear: You wanted to know what "fisher" means. The answer is that it means "someone who fishes". If you also don't know what the verb "fishes" means, then you can go look it up in the dictionary like any other word you don't know the meaning of. But "fisher" has a perfectly clear meaning based on the verb "fish" (or multiple potential meanings based on context, if "fish" as a verb has multiple meanings).
That is literally not consistent with the way many of these words work. That's the entire point of the post. I have no clue how you don't understand that. You are over-simplifying. How many examples of this not being how it works do you want me to look up for you right now? Hell, you got one in goddamned front of you. "Bird" is not a freaking verb— not in relation to the animal, anyway.
Yes it is! It's just not one you recognize!
Okay, listen. You're saying "birder" is "someone who birds birds". And? What does "to bird" even mean? According to the dictionary, it means TO OBSERVE, not literally TO BIRD. And what is a fisher? "A person who fishes fish"? And what does "to fish" mean? TO CATCH. Not TO OBSERVE this time. That means that verbing a noun is not consistent. You could argue "A [noun]er is a person who [same-noun-but-used-as-a-verb]s [first noun]s" all day, but what does that effing really mean when that verb is different every time?
I really, really don't know how to break this down simpler for you, okay? The meaning is inconsistent, and cannot be known without being told, which means can't be extrapolated at all. That's the freaking point. Already knowing the meaning of words is not the same as extrapolating them.
You're adding an extra noun! It's not "someone who verbs nouns", it's just "someone who verbs". Example: A birder is not "someone who birds birds", it's just "someone who birds", with "bird" meaning "to observe birds". This is easier to see with simpler nouns. Welder = someone who welds. Racer = someone who races. Yodeler = someone who yodels. Singer = someone who sings. The meaning is inconsistent because the verb is different every time! You're not being given a noun and have to guess the verb. You're being given the verb directly. If you don't know what that verb means then yeah you have to look it up, just like EVERY OTHER WORD IN EXISTENCE.
Edit:
I really, really don’t know how to break this down simpler for you, okay?
You can keep saying stuff like this but every time you do I only relish the irony.
Anyways I decided an example that can't even have a noun might be helpful. This works with any intransitive verb, but the best example I have is probably "worker" = "someone who works". You could also use "yawner", "laugher", "walker", "carer", etc.
A badger verifies badge legitimacy.
Or maybe he gives badges. Time to go find one O:
So a mother is someone who watches moths?
They create moths
I'm a lemmer.
Isn't witcher just a word that was made up for (the English translation of) the Witcher series?
yes, the word wiedźmin was also made up so why not
he is actually a hexer in his native language
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
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.
A bouncer is a bouncer of bounce?
A bouncer is a creator of bounce
Well, [word2] is probably not the same as [word1].
As an aside, the wonderful thing about Tiggers, is that Tiggers are tiggers of tiggs!
Geralt of rivia is a witcher who fucks witches
I think create and breed are the only ones that don't apply there.
Lol yeah was gonna say post got it wrong, Witchers don't hunt witches they hunt monsters.
So what's a "fucker"?
A fuck hunter
A giver of fucks
A fucker of fucks, clearly.
Wait so what's the word for "I f*** witches"? Asking for a friend.
"Witchbroomer", I think.
Although "Witchf***er" would make a great band name.
I would go see that band. I expect heavy+aggressive drums and electric guitar.
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
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.
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”
Hawk is also a verb. Many words have more than one uses.
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.
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.
I don't know why anyone downvoted you.
it's because they are salty AF and want the comment to be sorted lower 😆