Improviser vs. Improvisor

[York99]

Ugh. I wish that stuff didn't bother me, but it does.

Its always frustrating when their so wrong!

Their or they're. Thoughts?

[arthursimone]

Thoughts?

sometimes

[mpbrockman]

Tell me Justin didn't miss that little detour.

[sara farr]

Justin didn't miss that little detour.

[jose]

Improvisor.

Craig Cackowski explained that keeping the "or" keeps us in touch with our roots as actors.

If it's good enough for Cacky, it's good enough for me.

As a sidenote, I've always used "longform" (because it looked better to me) even though when I started doing improv "long form" and "long-form" seemed to be popular.

Lately, it seems that "longform" has generally won out when using it in conjuction with or in reference to improv.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

can anyone who's better with grammar and etymology determine why some words are -er and others -or? actor/director/conductor vs. writer/singer/performer? perhaps that could give us some insight...

the best i can come up with is that those ending in -or can also have their root verbs modified to serve as nouns themselves, ending in -ion. action, direction, conduction...while the -er words can't. now, we do have improvisation which would seem to lend itself more towards -or, but then would we be improvisators? :p

[Jeff]

but then would we be improvisators? :p

Joda el idioma inglés.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

improvisadoras! Si y! Me gusta jugar al Teacher!

[Pdyx]

can anyone who's better with grammar and etymology determine why some words are -er and others -or? actor/director/conductor vs. writer/singer/performer? perhaps that could give us some insight...

the best i can come up with is that those ending in -or can also have their root verbs modified to serve as nouns themselves, ending in -ion. action, direction, conduction...while the -er words can't. now, we do have improvisation which would seem to lend itself more towards -or, but then would we be improvisators? :p

Looking at your examples all the "or" words have a 't' before them.

The examples I used earlier in this thread (exerciser, advertiser) share the 's' before. The word is improvise. So it makes sense.

I'm GUESSING if a word ends in e you add an -r whereas if it ends in a consonant you add -or more often than not?

Just pure speculation with no linguistics background (other than a undergraduate class 10 years ago) and no internet research.

Where's Sandra M.? Why doesn't she post on the forums? She might be able to answer this question.


But sounding it out might help too, maybe. I think there is a slightly different pronunciation (though especially in some regions it might be lost) between the ending of Actor and Improviser.

Again, no real clue here. I do love this kind of stuff but don't know much about it.

[Pdyx]

Found this:

http://www.spelling.hemscott.net/ends4.html

Seems like generally a T makes it -or and often otherwise it's -er.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

well now writer confuses me. DAMN YOU, IMPROV!

[Jeff]

well now writer confuses me. DAMN YOU, IMPROV!

Sure "writer" has a 't', but unlike "actor, conductor," etc., the 't' is preceded by A VOWEL, which I'm sure is a big, big deal.

[mpbrockman]

Incisor. Advisor (hmm, spellcheck doesn't agree on that one). Aggressor. Censor. Successor. Professor. Sensor. Assessor. Cursor. Scissor. Divisor. Tensor.

By-Tor (and the Snow Dog).

That didn't fit but it was cool.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

well now writer confuses me. DAMN YOU, IMPROV!

Sure "writer" has a 't', but unlike "actor, conductor," etc., the 't' is preceded by A VOWEL, which I'm sure is a big, big deal.

i think more important is that it precedes a vowel itself (ie: the e is more important than the i. and yes, i realize what i just did there...)

[EmilyBee]

I get paid to do this shit, therefore I will not split the hairs here.

MS Word says "er", but DAMN THE MAN! Maybe we can just bounce back and forth. I won't block you if you say either -er- or -or-. Does it really matter, though? I mean, we make it all up anyway