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Comment by Jabbles | Hacker News Reader

What rule allowed him to use the word "goer"?

Here's the thing– the "rules" of grammar only really exist to facilitate effective communication.

Every so often, a skilled communicator chooses to bend a rule in order to make a point. If the point is well made, it sticks, and people start imitating it.

Next thing you know, the newly-coined word becomes an "actual" word with real currency. (I put "actual" in quotes, because if you think about it, all words are made up. All "rules" are really just general guidelines.)

All the rules are made up too! Like fashion, language is one of those things where popularity rules.

> (I usually count all forms of a word, like “kick” and “kicked,” together as one word, although there are a few special cases where I don’t.)

http://blog.xkcd.com/2015/09/22/a-thing-explainer-word-check...

So on a whim, I put some system documentation that I wrote into the simple word writer linked on that page (xkcd.com/simplewriter). So many red words... perhaps that's a challenge suited for another day.

I'm not sure, but I think we can all agree "US Space Team" is an infinitely better name than NASA!

But I'm pretty sure "US" is only allowed because it matches the common word "us", rather than as an acronym for a nation.

Presumably proper names are exempt from the count.

Of course now that you've raised the point, I'll probably have to waste some time today working out a simple word name for myself.

It would seem that he did not allow himself proper nouns:

> I found myself wishing that Munroe had allowed himself a few more terms—“Mars” instead of “red world,” or “helium” instead of “funny voice air.”

I guess nounification of verbs is allowed.

Maybe he can mentor us on how to do that. /rimshot

The rule that adding an -er to a word you get the agent.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-er#Etymology_1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_noun

I would guess he concerned himself more with stems than surface form.

Except "fill" is allowed, but "filler" is not. I think he cheated.

Depending on context, filler is a much more complicated concept. You could be referring to stuff they put in food that is not food, or stuff they put in cracks to fill them in, or a nozzle at a gas station.

By contrast, go is such a foundational word to English that it appears in English reading primers for toddlers, and a goer goes.

grow, grower.

The point is, he's not simply stemming. He cheats.

If he uses regular rules for allowable modifiers (e.g., "-er" can be added to a verb that is in the base list, to form a noun that is refers to the agent of the action described by the verb, then "filler" would be allowed if "fill" but not "filler" was on the list, but only to refer to the actor who causes something to be filled, rather than thing with which something is filled.)

I certainly think its clear (and even implicit in his own descriptions) that the exact methodology is not disclosed, but I don't think its far to say simply "he cheated".

Beyond what the other comments said, that was the title of the very first diagram he made like this, and he was probably just trying to pick a punchy title.

Doers gonna do.

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