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One of my favorite suffixes is -ster. Its is a fun tale of misplaced gender and reanalyzed forms. In Old English, -ster was used to form the feminine nomen agentis (person who does X, Xer), but French also had a suffix, -teur to form the masculine nomen agentis, and after French crept into England, -ster was reanalyzed as being masculine, so and -ess was added to yield -stress, as in seamstress, which is actually doubly feminine. Some of these earlier -ster words survive as dialect words or proper names: Baxter (bake), Webster (weave), Dempster (deem, judge), deemster (a title in Scotland). Some of the Old English words died out: lærestre 'female teacher', hoppestre 'female dancer', lybbestre 'female poisoner, witch'. And some great ones from Middle English like bellringstre or throwstre. The suffix is usually used with verbs but it can also be used with nouns, like gangster.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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So properly speaking Ma Baker would be a gangster not a gangstress. I wonder where -ist came from. I am a therapist not a therapyster. Oh, I think I just answered my own question: Therapy > therapyster > therapister > therapist. Ist only with -y verbs or canst think of others as well?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And a "spinster" typically had long tresses.
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Well, therapist is a modern coinage, along with the slightly older therapeutist. In Greek, there were two nomina agentis for therapeuo ' to treat medically; serve': therapeutes and therapeuter (with a feminine form therapeutris). Another discussed the -ism / -ist and -asm / -ast suffixes. Intersting that there isn't a therapism. The verb stems from a noun theraps 'a servant or companion'. There is also a theory that it is a loanword from Hittite.
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And let's not forget the huckster.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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and after French crept into England
Crept? Well I suppose so, pretty much in the same way that the shockwave from a nuclear blast creeps across the countryside ...
Or, at least, that's the way it would have seemed to the locals, I daresay!
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Or, at least, that's the way it would have seemed to the locals, I daresay!
Yes, indeed, or to the Romano-Britons when the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes came, or the Britons when the Romans came, or the dot dot dot, but you get the idea. "There's always a bigger fish." Or an earlier invader.
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Pooh-Bah
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I seem to remember reading that there was a conscious effort by the Normans to supplant the Anglo-Saxon language with Norman French from the beginning, especially in the law courts. It was part of the divide and conquer process which Willy the tanner's by-blow from Falaise put into practice so effectively from 1066 onwards. By 1087 the use of French in the courts was more or less mandatory. 20 years is not a long time in linguistic terms!
The Romans, on the other hand, couldn't give a damn about the language issue as long as the local tax farmers kept them cards and letters rollin' in ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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There's apparently a trend among the younger generation to attach -ster to names (mostly one-syllable, I think), I guess as an affectionate form: jheemster, troyster, juanster, usw.
Any ideas on this?
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Carpal Tunnel
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A marble player (shooting marbles) is called a mibster, or mibsters.
And this brings to mind the new coinage my high school niece gave me which I mentioned here, scenester.
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