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Normally when going from a verb to a person who performs that verb, one adds er to the verb. So, if you walk you are a walker; if you deal you are a dealer, and so on.

But I noticed recently that pest and pester are the wrong way round. If you pester, then you are a pest.

My question is: is this a one-off, or are there other verbs that share this phenomenon?

John Wickerson
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    You are basing your question on a misapprehension: someone who pesters is a pesterer, not a pest. The verb is actually unrelated to the noun, except that the noun has influenced it to gain an -st- cluster it did not originally have. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 05 '14 at 20:30
  • It's all so vexing. – Elliott Frisch Mar 05 '14 at 20:33
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    Water the dog but don't milk the cat. – Carl Witthoft Mar 05 '14 at 20:40
  • Apparently this question rests upon a misunderstanding about the etymological relationship between the words "pest" and "pester". While similar questions may be on-topic here, this one is unlikely to help future readers. This can often be avoided by consulting good reference works before posting a question: in this case, a good dictionary or other source of etymology. – MetaEd Mar 06 '14 at 00:01
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    I think these closevotes are rather missing the point. Ugly nouns like *pesterer* and *scamperer* only "exist" because we don't like the implications of allowing the simpler forms to serve in the relevant context (i.e. - they seem to violate the common principle of normal "noun production" that goes from *verb* to *verber*). – FumbleFingers Mar 06 '14 at 00:37

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Etymologically speaking, it would appear that...

a scamp is one who scampers

I wouldn't like to say this is the only other example - in fact that seems vanishingly unlikely to me. It's just that I can't think of another one off the top of my head.

But obviously in principle there's no reason why the vagaries of language evolution shouldn't produce apparent "anomalies" like this. Just because there's a general rule applicable to many contexts doesn't mean that all words will undergo the same process.

FumbleFingers
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  • Far less common, but apparently a *flit* could be seen as one who *flitters, and a glim* is a light (such a candle) that *glimmers. And stretching a point, maybe a slob* is one who *slobbers, a tot totters, and a twit twitters*. – FumbleFingers Mar 06 '14 at 00:26