I was writing a requirements document, and I had to use the word to represent a person who makes a request. Is that word spelled “requester” or “requestor”? It turns out that both the spellings are correct, and the two words can be used interchangeably. But the more accurate spelling is “requester”. So, how do you remember when to use “er” and when to use “or”? The below rules might be helpful:
- Verbs ending in a silent e usually change to nouns by ending -er: for example: dive/diver, bake/baker, dine/diner, write/writer
- -er is also the most common way of ending a word for someone carrying out an action: report/reporter, produce/producer, teach/teacher, sell/seller, kill/killer
- -or is used when the base word ends in -ate, -ct, -it : educate/educator, animate/animator, direct/director, prospect/prospector, visit/visitor, edit/editor