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.
It’s a contraction where the second word is dropped, because what else would you do with them?
Centuries go by, and sometimes it’s no longer the most obvious. But the contraction has already been accepted