| Re: partyer, partier ??? |
Vispa |
| Richard Polhill (richard.news@polhill.vispa.invalid) |
2007/01/04 01:41 |
Miss Elaine Eos wrote:
> In article <5b4f0$459b686b$3e18e6cb$20436@news.vispa.com>,
> Richard Polhill <richard.news@polhill.vispa.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Simon wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> Being that time of year I have a festive question.
>>> Both the words partyer and partier are listed by dictionary.com:
>>> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/partier
>>>
>>> However I haven't found either of these two words in any other on-line
>>> dictionary.
>>>
>>> Does anybody know if they are american english and not british english?
>>>
>>> Happy New Year,
>>> Simon.
>
>> Hmm not sure the word exists as such but can legally be built by adding -er
>> suffix to party. Partier cannot possibly be correct, however.
>
> Are you British? "Partier" is the common American word; "partyer" looks
> British to me. Btw, how do you spell our word "flier" (made by adding
> "er" to "fly", after changing the Y to an I, because that's the rule
> when adding ER)?
To be honest they both look wrong to my eyes out of context; maybe in context
they'd make sense. Anyway, Chambers has never heard of them, nor does the
Compact OED but I suppose they have some validity as there isn't an existing
alternative that carries the sense "one who parties a lot".
I wouldn't cling to tightly to rules. English tends not to be as subject to
hard rules as some people believe. It isn't Latin or French.
>
>> Rather than make up words it would be better to use party-goer or reveller as
>> they carry the intended meaning.
>
> Those work, too :)
>
> Don't be too hard on the evolving language -- even the editors of OED
> recognize a dozen or two new "made-up" words as "official" every year.
>
No I am happy for the language to evolve. My response was mostly a knee-jerk
reaction; 'partyer' and 'partier' still look like mis-spellings to me. I think
the current form in British English would be to hyphenate the suffixation:
'party-er'. I suspect that this will look clumsy to American eyes, however.
Divided by a common language...
Rich
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