oporator?
grammer?

mispelling?


-or or -er should be least of your worry!

Just accept the fact that there are rules and there are exceptions, meaning there is no rule.
 

Rafiq Bulsara
http://www.srengineersct.com

A very rough indicator for me is;
-er applies to a person (painter, adviser, writer, golfer, footballer, potter)
-or applies to a thing (adaptor, resistor, capacitor, applicator, monitor)  

As usual with the English language, there are many exceptions to that rule. (sailor, hall-monitor, creator, mentor, electronic-controller, operator)

The etymology of the base word probably has a large bearing on which suffix is 'correct' ... but I'm only guessing because I'm not an etymologistorer.

Of course an adapter might install an adaptor and then you're completely lost.

Thank you Cor.  That is the rule that I could not remember and of course I had the rule flipped to the exception side.  But like both of you say I guess it does not matter that much especially if I cannot even speeeel, I mean spell grammar and operator.

The funniest part is that I had just looked up operator to verify that it ends in -or vs. -er.

This is an embarrassing senor moment.  Kindly imagine a tilde over the n in senor.
 

There's no rule.  The default agentive suffix in English is now -er, which means that newer words mostly have -er, but then a lot of rather new technical terms have -or, perhaps because a lot of technical terms were taken directly from Latin and then people started to associate -or with technology (hence "haqzor").  Older words can go either way, loosely based on when and from which language the words came into English, but that's not a perfect predictor/er either.  You're stuck having to memorize them.

And there are plenty of words that go both ways; in most of those cases, the -or version has a more specialized meaning while the "Xer" version just means "one who Xes".

There's been somewhat of an attempt to distinguish a person who welds from a machine used for welding by using "weldor" for the former and "welder" for the latter, which given the "fancy equipment" association with -or is the opposite of how I would have done it.  But it hasn't caught on universally.  I had to look it up to see which was supposed to be which.

Hg

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Hg you amaze me.  Thank you for ferreting it out.  You make it interesting in the way you that you pose it.

Because agentive is a new word for me, I had to find it and the word volition I knew only vaguely so have copied them for others that might be interested so that it is more of a piece right here.  It all makes a lot more sense now if that is possible given the English language but I need to think on it a bit but no time right now.  Must go play some 8 ball with my psycologist buddy.  When I return I will pursue the other threads i.e. Betcha and Bloopers.

a⋅gen⋅tive
2.    (in case grammar) pertaining to the semantic role or case of a noun phrase that indicates the volitional or primary causer of the action expressed by a verb.
vo⋅li⋅tion  [voh-lish-uhn, vuh-]  Show IPA
–noun 1.    the act of willing, choosing, or resolving; exercise of willing: She left of her own

volition.
2.    a choice or decision made by the will.
3.    the power of willing; will.
vo•li•tion    (və-lĭsh'ən)    
n.  The act or an instance of making a conscious choice or decision.
A conscious choice or decision.
The power or faculty of choosing; the will.
 

Quote:

Hg you amaze me.

I've actually been thinking the same thing over the last couple of days...  must be going soft in my old age or something.  Suppose I'd ought to dish out an LPS or two.

And then again, there is always the spell checker (or is it checkor?)

rmw

  Quote, "Suppose I'd ought to dish out an LPS or two."

OK ivymike I give up.  What is LPS?

And rmw -- spell checkor?  LOL

metman,

I can interpret that.  LPS are the ubiquitous Little Purple Stars earned for good posts on this site.

I am also amazed by Hg's advice, although in this case I will still get it wrong much of the time.

Warning, on some monitors/graphics settings LPS are actually LPS.

The purple may be so light in color as to be pink not purple.

(Spell chequor?)

If you like "agentive", you'll love "decessive".  Used in a number of Native American languages to carry the sense of "used to be but isn't any more".

Hg

(Don't be too amazed.  I cheat.  I have a couple of degrees in linguistics.)

 

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Yeah, I get that at Olive Garden a lot too.

rmw

Yeah, Olive Garden. Doncha just love how they carry around that cradled bottle of wine with a smirk on their face and wine glasses strewn hither and yon?  How can one possible resist?

And yeah, Hg that is definitely cheating!  Decessive?  Omigosh I think this deserves a new thread.  But that is for someone with more panache than I.  Besides I am becoming too ubiquitous around here.

BTW, you might have noticed that I have not visited the 'you betcha' column in the last few days.  Feared of how many condemnations there could be over there now that I think I've finally figured out about the 'starting from zero or one'.  And then like an idiot, I had to say, "period" when there was already one there.  But it is all rmw's fault (or is that rmws' – Word don't like it either way obviously)  for getting us all off track on that thread.  Maybe I will revisit that thread in month or two when I get up my courage and not feeling so pedantic.  Seems like a person would get a clue when Hg receives about a zillion LPS's for a post?
 

Heh heh.

Youbetcha!!!

rmw

I see a lot of our folks consistently messing up the words resistor and arrester.  The person/thing distinction doesn't help here.

Wouldn't the arrester be the one who detains the resistor,  my guess is for improper wear of colors.

 

Has anyone pondered the issue of "scholar" and "registrar" or "bursar"?   

Engineering is not the science behind building.  It is the science behind not building.