Once I was reading the back of an album cover (those were big 12" plastic discs, kind of like a huge CD).
In the listing of the band members, it called the bass player the “Basser” and the drum player the “Drumist”.
That very cleverly got me thinking about the reason/origin of certain words.
For example, the person playing the violin is a violinist. But the person play a trumpet is a trumpeter.
In other realms, the person who writes is a writer. The person who edits is an editor.
I have my own pet theory about this, which involves a class system associated with these activites. But I want to hear other ideas first.
And a probably totally unrelated observation, the last few months of the year begin Sept* Oct* Nov* Dec, which correspond to numbers: 7, 8, 9, 10. So why isn’t October called Octember?
The music stuff I’ll leave for experts there. But this one is simple. In olden days (it varies by country) the year started in March. Only relatively recently did we start the year with January. You can do the math. As for October not being Octember, not a clue. Probably somebody being cute? But more likely it was just the extension of the Latin number names.
You’re not actually talking about spelling. You’re talking about endings, which rightfully belong to conjugation. Endings enter English from a variety of earlier languages and have simply been mixed or altered or applied randomly over the years.
[.
-er (3) Look up -er at Dictionary.com
suffix used to make jocular or familiar formations from common or proper names (soccer being one), first attested 1860s, English schoolboy slang, “Introduced from Rugby School into Oxford University slang, orig. at University College, in Michaelmas Term, 1875” [OED, with unusual precision]."]Etymonline.com](-er (1) Look up -er at Dictionary.com
English agent noun ending, corresponding to L. -or. In native words it represents O.E. -ere (O.Northumbrian also -are) “man who has to do with,” from W.Gmc. *-ari (cf. Ger. -er, Swed. -are, Dan. -ere), from P.Gmc. *-arjoz. Some believe this root is identical with, and perhaps a borrowing of, Latin -arius. In words of Latin origin, verbs derived from pp. stems of Latin ones (including most verbs in -ate) usually take the Latin ending -or, as do Latin verbs that passed through French (e.g. governor), but there are many exceptions (eraser, laborer, promoter, deserter, sailor, bachelor), some of which were conformed from Latin to English in late M.E. The use of -or and -ee in legal language (e.g. lessor/lessee) to distinguish actors and recipients of action has given the -or ending a tinge of professionalism, and this makes it useful in doubling words that have both a professional and non-professional sense (e.g. advisor/adviser, conductor/conducter, incubator/incubater, elevator/elevater).
-er (2) Look up -er at Dictionary.com
comparative suffix, from O.E. -ra (masc.), -re (fem., neut.), from P.Gmc. *-izon, *-ozon (cf. Goth. -iza, O.S. -iro, O.N. -ri, O.H.G. -iro, Ger. -er), originally also with umlaut change in stem, but this was mostly lost in O.E. by historical times and has now vanished (except in better and elder). “For most comparatives of one or two syllables, use of -er seems to be fading as the oral element in our society relies on more before adjectives to express the comparative; thus prettier is more pretty, cooler is more cool” [Barnhart)
The calendar was named in Roman times, when March was the first month of ten. July and August were added later. And the start of the year was also later switched to January.
It was January and February that were added later, to the beginning of the year. The names of Quintilis and Sextilis were changed by Augustus Caesar to Iulius and Augustus.
Also, the naming is simple – simply “-ber” added to “septem,” “octo,” “novem,” and “decem.”
Often with language, the answer is simply that the term people use more often becomes accepted as the correct one over time.
With regard to your musical examples, one possiblity is that “drum” and “trumpet”, while also the names of instruments, are commonly used as verbs, and “violin” and “bass” are not. So “drummer” and “trumpeter” just sort of sound right, but “violiner” and “basser” don’t. Folks were comfortable using the words a certain way, so that’s how they caught on.
(A chicken/egg answer, perhaps, but it’s the best I got…)
I like Wheelz conjecture on the music. Someone who drums/trumpets/sings is a drummer/trumpeter/singer. Someone who plays the piano/violin/saxophone is a pianist/violinist/saxophonist.
This seems to be spot on. As has been said, this is a question of morphology, not spelling.
Each suffix has their own meaning, and their own etymology.
Wiktionary has more detailed information on er, and ist. It just depends on where and when a particular word was being used. ‘Drummist’ makes perfect sense, and if it were used more often it could even evolve to become more widely accepted as part of the English language, but we seem pretty happy with ‘drummer’.
Is there a clue in the relative ages of the instruments? The drum and trumpet are thousands of years old, while the other instruments are 500 years old or less.
Then there is the word that pedants use to describe a flute player. What is its history?
In many cases (but probably not here) the origins of differences go back to the various dialects of English that all came together in London. This is the explanation I have read about the varying pronunciations of “-ough”, that each was part of a systematic series in one dialect, but distinct dialects prevailed in London for each word.
And why do spell checkers flag the perfectly good word “advisor” (someone who advises a student).
This piqued my interest, so I googled around trying to find an answer. But all I found were lots of examples of people asking the “octember” question and getting the answer “Well, the old roman calendar began in march with october the 8th month”.
Strange.
And then there are cases where the same verb is used with both “-er” and “-ist”, such as “recorder” (someone who keeps official records) and “recordist” (someone who records sound).
But more likely it was just the extension of the Latin number names.