single word requests - One who creates is a creator. What is one who updates?


One who creates is a creator. What is one who updates?



  • An updater?

  • An updator?


The last one seems more logical, but also wrong.



Answer



According to Dr. Goodword's Language Blog,



Generally, -or is a Latin suffix and -er is the Germanic equivalent meaning, roughly, “one who Vs”, where V represents any verb. Words borrowed directly from Latin, then, tend to end with -or: governor, calculator, arbitrator, legislator, alternator. Words of Germanic origin (English is a Germanic language) generally take -er: runner, thinker, worker, joker.


However, two factors muddy the water. English borrowed many words from French in the Middle Ages and the French equivalent of -or and -er, is -eur. English generally reduced that suffix to -er, keeping it only in a few words borrowed late: amateur, restaurateur, raconteur [...]


[...] you need to know the etymologies of many of the verbs that -er and -or are added to, in order to know how to distribute them. You can be sure that verbs ending with -ize and -ify will take the suffix -er and that verbs ending on the suffix -ate will be suffixed with -or.



You may note that "update" ends with "-ate"; however, it is not a suffix, as it is in words like asphyxiate and elongate. According to dictionary.com, "update" is "up-" + "date", and "date" came to English via French, and therefore according to the information above should take "-er" as its suffix. (Indeed, dictionary.com lists "updater" in its set of related forms.)


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