Timeline for Why do "prisoner" and "jailer" mean different things?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 14, 2013 at 17:32 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | A [noun/adjective/adverb]-er isn’t necessarily someone who makes use of [N/A/A]—it’s rather more vague than that. It’s just someone who is somehow or other associated with [N/A/A]. A foreigner, for instance, does not ‘use’ foreign lands, he is just generically associated with ‘foreign’. These words can be considered a type of determinative compounds, with the -er suffix functioning as the compound head. | |
| Jul 6, 2012 at 20:03 | comment | added | Daniel | I see. So [noun]-er is someone who makes use of the [noun], and [verb]-er is someone who [verb]s. Makes complete sense to me now. It's just that it wasn't obvious that jail is a verb, especially when set side-by-side with prison. | |
| Jul 6, 2012 at 20:01 | comment | added | MT_Head | @Danielδ - Other examples: pensioner (one who receives a pension), commoner (one who belongs to the commons)... probably a bunch of others, but my brain just ran dry. | |
| Jul 4, 2011 at 1:33 | vote | accept | Daniel | ||
| Jul 3, 2011 at 21:09 | comment | added | Thursagen | "jailer" is referring to 'a person who jails'. Jail is being used as verb. "prisoner" is 'a person who belongs to prison'. Prison is noun here. | |
| Jul 3, 2011 at 13:48 | vote | accept | Daniel | ||
| Jul 3, 2011 at 13:48 | |||||
| Jul 3, 2011 at 12:32 | comment | added | Daniel | That makes about halfway sense to me. But still - why then is "prisoner" a word at all? | |
| Jul 3, 2011 at 9:33 | history | answered | Robusto | CC BY-SA 3.0 |