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November 25

-er and -or

I just read an article that called a tech company a disruptor. That seemed weird to me. Shouldn't it be disrupter? This made me wonder about the difference beween -er and -or. To me, it seems like an -er is a 'maker of actions' and an -or (or -trix) is necessarily a human actor with personal agency. To make up an imaginary example, in my mind a roboter would be an operator of robots, a a robotor would be a maker of robots, and a robotist would be an aficionado of robots. Silly example, but run with it. Can anyone tell me what's going on with these suffixes? Temerarius (talk) 22:59, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

EO talks about -er [1] and -or [2]. Good luck figuring it out. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:39, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Temerarius -- It's a little confusing because "-er" comes from both a native Old English suffix, as well as a French suffix (from Latin "-arius"), while "-or" occurs in words borrowed directly from Latin, and in those borrowed from medieval French words ending in "-our" (modern standard French "-eur"). The Latin "-or" suffix was attached to the past participle stem of the verb (usually ending in "t", but not always -- e.g. "sponsor"). "Disrupt" is the past participle stem of a Latin verb, so the "-or" suffix would be favored in that respect, but "disrupter" seems to occur frequently also... AnonMoos (talk) 04:53, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly enough, EO doesn't list either "disruptor" or "disrupter". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:23, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And a number of online dictionaries that I checked (including the OED Online) list both versions without distinguishing between them, so both are used. Memory Alpha, a wiki for Star Trek fans (therefore not a reliable source), uses the spelling "disruptor" for the (fictional) weapon and "disrupter" for a (fictional) activist group, exactly the opposite of what feels natural to Temerarius, and I have to say it feels natural for me. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 19:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is a small number of words where the -er and -or endings are interchangeable: e.g. adviser/advisor. But the great majority take one or the other, but never both: menter, employor, reador, auditer, murderor - these are all No-Nos. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:03, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Agent noun indicates that either "-er" or "-or" can turn a verb into an agent noun. You have to look up the individual word origins to see if something makes any sense beyond the normal peculiarities of English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]