There shall be no further debate: The word is “adviser” and not “advisor.” Period.
Of all the questions that get asked of a teacher, the perennial one is whether the noun that identifies someone who advises ends in “er” or “or.”
Strange that not enough people have caught on.
The Associate Press Stylebook doesn’t even try to explain the rationale for why it’s “adviser” rather than “advisor.” It simply declares that the first spelling is correct.
So I did some research on why there’s a discrepancy with these and other words. The discrepancy, by the way, is huge, in that we find the misspelled word, i.e, the one that ends in -or, in newspaper ads, in most job descriptions and in the cranial storage facilities of every English teacher on the planet. We journalists, though correct, remain outnumbered.
As one who taught mostly journalism at Highlands but English in high school and at Luna Community College, I find it necessary to acquiesce and spell it incorrectly, with “-or” when at Luna. The rest of the time it’s -er.
But that’s not convincing enough. One wants to know why some words contain the “e” and others the “o.”
Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., also known as the WordGuy on the net, tried to answer that question, which few seem to be able to grasp. Me too.
In a column called “To ‘e’ or Not to ‘e,’” Kyff asks why someone who paints is a painter but someone who acts is an actor. Is there a simple rule to guide the er/or choices? Kyff explains that in a general sense, words that come from Latin take an -or ending, whereas -er often ends words of Anglo-Saxon origin.
Fine, and that means all we have to do is find out which words originated close to the Tiber and which sprung from the Rhine region.
A couple of examples Kyff provides show that “actor” comes from “actus,” a Latin term, and “painter” comes from Anglo-Saxon. Simple enough? So, in most
cases, if you wonder how a word should end, strive to become a scholar in classical languages and look up the derivation of the word in question. And while you’re there, look up the spelling — or ask a teacher.
Just for fun, “To ‘e’ or Not to ‘e’” contains this quiz, but remember, we take off for misspelling:
1. eradicator/eradicater
2. idolator/idolater
3. facilitator/facilitater
4. counselor/counseler
5. dispersor/disperser
6. lecturor/lecturer
7. detestor/detester
8. dispensor/dispenser
9. elucidator/elucidater
10. burser/bursor
Answors: 1, 3, 4, 9 contain an “o”; 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 end in “er” and 10, which refers to someone who handles business mattors for a college, is a trick question. It’s “bursar.”
• • •
A blonde joke making the rounds on the Internet is: “What do George H.W. Bush and a natural blonde have in common?”
The short answer is that they’re both Republicans, but the more detailed explanation is that both the natural blonde and George H.W. Bush are retronyms.
What, pray tell, is a retronym? It’s a term that has become necessary in order to separate the old from the new. For example, before Dubya became president, “President Bush” was all people needed to identify the then-leader of the country. When his son became President-Select, we needed a distinguishing term to apply to the older Bush. Hence, we get “H.W.” to give them at least some distinction.
Likewise, there used to be blondes, pure and simple. Now, thanks to a solution in a bottle or a concoction in beauty shops, we need a term to distinguish between one who is really blonde and one who bought the blondeness. And that’s where the retronym “natural blonde” comes from. Before bottled water, we had, simply, water. But now we need the term “tap water” to distinguish that from the filtered stuff we buy in supermarkets.
We didn’t need the term “desktop computer” until the laptop was invented; and e-tickets for airline travel made it necessary to make a couple of linguistic modifications and refer to the thing the agent sells us as a “paper ticket.”
Nobody had ever heard of a “land-line phone” until the advent of that cellular thingee attached to people’s left ear.
The retronym “terrestrial radio” didn’t come about until the creation of satellite radio. And nobody ever referred to his analog TV until digital TV came along; digital cameras have spawned the need to specify a film camera, and back in the olden days, all diapers were made of cloth. But now, with virtually every child made to wear Pamper or Huggies, we need to specify cloth diapers.
Some words (and this is a topic for another column) describe objects for which a generic term is difficult. What, without becoming excessively prolix, do we call it if we can’t use “Pampers”?
Words get coined for a variety of reasons. For example, when France refused to join the “coalition of the willing” following 911, some lawmakers in Washington pushed the idea of renaming those things that come with a Big Mac; thus, French fries became “Freedom Fries.”
But later, when Britain’s Tony Blair opted to pull out many of his troops from Iraq, Washington salons should have reacted quickly by choosing to call those buttered breakfast treats “Freedom Muffins.”
By the way, the sophisticated electronic message board near Robertson High School keeps wishing all of us a great summes (not to be confused with summer or summor).
But let’s not be too critical about the message that’s been flashing for weeks. And besides, what’s more important, good grammar or good wishes?
I can remember a few retronyms from my youth, one involving water. “Drinking water” was used to distinguish it from water one couldn’t drink because it came from a questionable source. “Sweet milk” was used because without refrigerator it became “blinky” or sour quickly. Also it wasn’t churned. Maybe “light bread” came into use to distinguish it from the rock hard biscuits that (someone else’s) mom served up. Our moms always made the best biscuits on the planet.
Thanks for the lesson. “Retronym” is now a part of my vocabulary. Also the “o” vs. “e” lesson was instructive.
Hi, Ben:
I’ve never heard the term “blinky” in reference to milk that sours quickily. Not much of a milk drinker, even when it comes to milkshakes and malts. Could it be that I’m lack toast and tolerant?
Art