[Buddha-l] suffix mantras (?) in Eng. [do not read if easily bored]

[Richard Hayes]

On Jan 4, 2010, at 2:04 PM, Joanna Kirkpatrick wrote:

> Someone recently asked if "philologer" is a word.

No one asked that. The word about which an inquiry was made was "philoger," a nonce word used in one of your messages. I found "philologer" in an on-line dictionary. It said "See 'philologist.'" That is the word I have most often heard used for the practitionist of a certain approach to texts, used by some religious studies methodologers. The word "philology" means "a love of knowledge" or "a love of words."

> English is variable.

All languages are. 

> I prefer the -oger ending whenever possible,
> because the -ist suffix strikes me as too often hinting at
> negativity,

That's a very odd belief. I suggest you may want to go see a psychologer to help you get to the root of that quirky habit of thought. Of course a good philosophist might also be able to offer some help, if you can find one. 

> as in the term "activist,"

I'm with you there. "Activator" or "actologer" rings much more positive in my ears than "activist."

> The term "Communist," followed in this country by
> "Socialist," probably started it all for -ist.

You're showing your age. Nobody has given a hoot about communists since Ronald Reagan was playing president. Imagine that! He was elected President of the USA without ever having been a Senatist. All he ever was before running for President was a governist of California. I guess that was considered enough to qualify him to Californicate the whole damn country, and most of the world with it..

> Spellcheck hates
> the list of terms ending in -oger, BTW.

That fact is the strongest argument I can think of for using that suffix. Aggravating spelling checkists is one of my favorite hobbies. But then I have always been something of an aggravationist.

> Might be fun to check up some of them in the OED to see if -oger
> words in the professional denotations preceded the -ist words.

Well, if that is your idea of fun, then please do it and report back to the rest of us. Meanwhile, we will be using our skills as grammologers.

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophistry
University of New Mexico (home of New Mexickers)