commenter vs. commentator

[Joel S. Berson]

Thank heavens someone knew I was joshing.

Joel

At 6/21/2010 12:54 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>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
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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