Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I understand the supposed root, but can't find it as an accepted derivation in my OED or elsewhere. So Gilbert may have coined the word, but it doesn't seem to have gone beyond that. ... I'm not really trying to be picky, just making the observation.
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One of the nice things about English, though, is that you can add endings to practically any word, and the listener will understand the word even if nobody's ever used it before. The "-er" ending in this case meaning "a person who carries out the action". Eg the word "computer" is recorded from 1640 in the sense of "a person who performs calculations".