Transcript:
What the heck is with the “-er” suffix?
“I’m a witcher.”
“What does a witcher do?”
“I create watch catch breed f*** hunt witches.”
“I’m a birder.”
“What does a birder do?”
“I create catch hunt breed f*** watch birds.”
“Actually I think several of those could apply…”
I think the confusing-ass formula is this:
A [word1]er is a [word2]er of [word1]s.
I’ve always thought of it as “Xer” = “someone who Xes”. X should be a verb. Builders build. Welders weld. Miners mine.
In the case of birder, birding is an activity, which I guess makes “bird” a verb (“to go birding”). “Witcher” was made up for the setting, but I guess “witch” is similarly a verb there.
What is “birding”? According to dictionary, it’s breed, catch, or watch. Fishers fish, right? What is “to fish” really, though? To swim? To be a fish? I mean, you can’t extrapolate it from the common verb as a rule, because that doesn’t apply to “birding”, does it?
So no, I don’t think your over-simplification works.
It’s not an over-simplification. This is literally just what the -er suffix does, besides the unrelated usage to make comparisons like “louder”. Look up “agent noun” for more info.
The common usage is to watch birds. The extension of the verb “bird” into “birder” is also commonly understood to mean someone who watches birds.
What? It means to catch fish. I’ve never heard any other meaning? Again, it’s not based on what a fish does, it’s based on what the verb “fish” means, which is to catch fish.
Ignoring the fact that “bird” is a verb with a fairly well-understood meaning, the reason “birder” or any other -er words are ambiguous is because the verbs are ambiguous. Words have multiple meanings… that’s just something that they do. That doesn’t change the overall rule that “birder” means “someone who birds”, it just means you have to figure out which meaning of “bird” (as a verb) it’s using.