One who creates is a creator. What is one who updates?
- An updater?
- An updator?
The last one seems more logical, but also wrong.
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3A natural selector. – Uticensis Mar 13 '11 at 04:36
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5@arex1337 Don't accept answers too quickly! You've gotten a nice answer, but I'm sure there might be a few people out there who have a little something to add, perhaps even one who can top the current highest-ranked answer. You see, if you accept too quickly, the software gives your question less visibility and it ultimately withers on the vine; not every question can be answered immediately. I'd advise waiting a day or two at least. – Uticensis Mar 13 '11 at 06:50
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1Related: What's the rule for adding -er vs. -or when nouning a verb? – RegDwigнt Mar 13 '11 at 11:46
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Why does the second one seem more logical? – ShreevatsaR Mar 13 '11 at 12:03
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3While you're worrying about which spelling to use on theoretical grounds, you might like to bear in mind that usage has already established the -er spelling fairly convincingly. Google "software updater" and you get 1.7 million results compared to 29 thousand for "software updator". – Neil Coffey Mar 13 '11 at 15:33
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According to Dr. Goodword's Language Blog,
Generally, -or is a Latin suffix and -er is the Germanic equivalent meaning, roughly, “one who Vs”, where V represents any verb. Words borrowed directly from Latin, then, tend to end with -or: governor, calculator, arbitrator, legislator, alternator. Words of Germanic origin (English is a Germanic language) generally take -er: runner, thinker, worker, joker.
However, two factors muddy the water. English borrowed many words from French in the Middle Ages and the French equivalent of -or and -er, is -eur. English generally reduced that suffix to -er, keeping it only in a few words borrowed late: amateur, restaurateur, raconteur [...]
[...] you need to know the etymologies of many of the verbs that -er and -or are added to, in order to know how to distribute them. You can be sure that verbs ending with -ize and -ify will take the suffix -er and that verbs ending on the suffix -ate will be suffixed with -or.
You may note that "update" ends with "-ate"; however, it is not a suffix, as it is in words like asphyxiate and elongate. According to dictionary.com, "update" is "up-" + "date", and "date" came to English via French, and therefore according to the information above should take "-er" as its suffix. (Indeed, dictionary.com lists "updater" in its set of related forms.)
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1Good answer. BUT we don't need to be too philosophical about this: in practice, "(software) updater" with -er is reasonably well established. – Neil Coffey Mar 13 '11 at 15:29
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1Anyone who thinks a restaurant owner is a restauranteur weakens his authority on etymology. – Tim Lymington Jun 22 '12 at 20:11
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A few words are used with both endings, as variants of each other. – Arm the good guys in America Nov 01 '17 at 01:27
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ok "or" is a latin suffix...so? I don't understand, how does that explain the difference? – Charlie Parker Feb 05 '18 at 19:12
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@CharlieParker if the word originates from Latin, it will most likely take the Latin suffix. – Hellion Feb 05 '18 at 22:05
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I would use creator for the person who creates a document/post/record and editor for someone who makes subsequent changes.
The English Chicken
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-er and -or are suffixes used to form nouns denoting a person, animal, or thing that performs a specified action or activity.
In the dictionaries I have, I don't find updater, nor updator.
If I were to choose, I would choose updater.
apaderno
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