General Discussion

12046 readers

3 users here now

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: !lemmy411@lemmy.ca!

Also keep an eye on:

For more involved tools to find communities to join: check out Lemmyverse!

💬 Additional Discussion Focused Communities:

!actual_discussion@lemmy.ca - Note this is for more serious discussions.
!casualconversation@lemm.ee - The opposite of the above, for more laidback chat!
!letstalkaboutgames@feddit.uk - Into video games? Here's a place to discuss them!
!movies@lemm.ee - Watched a movie and wanna talk to others about it? Here's a place to do so!
!politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world - Want to talk politics apart from political news? Here's a community for that!

Rules

Remember, Lemmy World rules also apply here.

0. See: Rules for Users.

No bigotry: including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
Be thoughtful and helpful: even with ‘silly’ questions. The world won’t be made better by dismissive comments to others on Lemmy.
Link posts should include some context/opinion in the body text when the title is unaltered, or be titled to encourage discussion.
Posts concerning other instances' activity/decisions are better suited to !fediverse@lemmy.world or !lemmydrama@lemmy.world communities.
No Ads/Spamming.
No NSFW content.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Jessica@lemmy.world

ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world

fubo@lemmy.world

151

The -er suffix (lemm.ee)

submitted 7 months ago by orphiebaby@lemm.ee to c/general@lemmy.world

46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Todd_cross@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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 -4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months 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.