thank you Bingley-- you included the only word from Indonesian that i was conscious of knowing..
tujuh orang guru-- and now i can count-- dua, tiga, empat, lima, eman, tujuh-- well amost count-- one pretty important number missing..
English has some classifiers, in the form of suffixes-- for small, een( from the irish)-- eeny meeny-- very tiny, or smithereens or ette from the french-- luncheonette or cigarette-- and one for about --ish sevenish or redish and in US-- for political scandel we now have -gate (watergate or monicagate, or whitewatergate)
i think there are others too. Most are vestages, but like doubled words- (attitude, schmatitude, or zig-zag) they are not the normal way of intensifying meaning-- but will occationaly crop up.. and they are understood-- gate is very well understood!
an other thread discussed some of the very old (and rapidly disappearing) feminizers.. actor (actress), aviator (aviatrix) waiter, (waitress), steward, etc. the feminist movement has helped.. but these classifers were disappearing even with out that trend.
