commenter vs. commentator

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:03 PM -0400 6/21/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>A commentator is an authoritative, reputable, prestigious commenter.
>
>Joel

or sometimes just a paid one

LH

>
>At 6/21/2010 11:15 AM, Judy Prince wrote:
>
>>Hi, Amy, thank you for raising this up-to-the-second discussion.
>>
>>Help me understand your distinction between the two word uses:  " . .
>>. the author and editors probably chose to use "commenter" because of the
>>difference between posting discrete comments to a number of stories as
>>opposed to creating a unified commentary."
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Judy
>>
>>On 21 June 2010 14:42, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
>>
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>  -----------------------
>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
>>>  Subject:      commenter vs. commentator
>>>
>>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>  On a social list of mine recently a lot of folks revealed their language
>>>  peeves, many of which were standard peever fodder (utilize vs. use, try
>>>  and vs. try to, etc.), and which I responded to with excerpts from MWDEU
>>>  and Huddleston & Pullum's Students Intro. One of the peeves was
>>>  "commentator."
>>>
>>>  So I noticed a use of "commenter" vs. "commentator" in a Boston Globe
>>>  Magazine article yesterday. It was about heavy users of newspaper
>>>  discussion boards or the comment function of online newspaper articles.
>>>
>>>  "Occasionally, he'll commit the common commenter sin of weighing in on
>>>  an article without having read it. . . . But, overall, he plays by the
>>>  rules, works hard at this commenter job of his, and, in a way serves his
>>>  community." -- Neil Swidey, "Two Cents in the Digital Age," Boston Globe
>>>  Magazine, 20 June 2010, p. 20.
>>>
>>>  I'm probably reading too much into this semantically, but the author and
>>>  editors probably chose to use "commenter" because of the difference
>>>  between posting discrete comments to a number of stories as opposed to
>>>  creating a unified commentary.
>>>
>>>  I apologize if there's already stuff about this in the archives.
>>>
>>>  ---Amy West
>>>
>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
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>
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