密歇根新闻广播 baby-sitting的由来

When baby sitters first started baby-sitting, we had no way to talk about what they were doing. That's because at first, all we had was a noun – there was no verb to speak of.

According to the Oxford¹ English Dictionary, the noun "baby sitter" was first recorded in 1937. The verb "baby-sit" didn't come along until 1946.

Linguists² call this a back-formation.

A back-formation is when a new word is formed by removing "actual or supposed affixes³." In this case, the "er" suffix⁴ is removed from the noun "baby sitter" to form the verb "baby-sit."

There are other back formations in the history of English. For instance, we had "editor" before we had "edit," we had "television" before we had "televise," and we had "diagnosis⁵" before we had "diagnose."

Now that the verb has been around for at least 70 years, babies aren't the only things we find ourselves baby-sitting. We can baby-sit the tea kettle while we wait for it to whistle, or we can spend the whole weekend baby-sitting the television. Sometimes we even baby-sit adults.

You'll notice in this article that in the verb form, we use a hyphen, "baby-sit," and in the noun form, "baby sitter," we separate the two words. That's because we follow AP Stylebook guidelines.

If that's not your preference, don't worry – not everyone agrees. For instance, Merriam-Webster and lexicographer⁶ Bryan Garner⁷ both avoid the hyphen and simply squish the two words together for both the noun and the verb, "babysit" and "babysitter" while the American Heritage Dictionary includes both the hyphen and squished-together versions.

What's your preference?

1 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

2 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句

3 affixes   

v.附加( affix的第三人称单数 )；粘贴；加以；盖（印章）

参考例句：

• She affixes her real name to her writings. 她的著作都署上真名。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The affixes "un-"and"-less"are often used make negative words, such as unhappy or careless. 词缀un-和-less常用来构成否定词，如unhappy和careless。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 suffix   

n.后缀；vt.添后缀

参考例句：

• We add the suffix "ly" to make the adjective "quick" into the adverb " quickly ".我们在形容词“ quick”后加“ly” 构成副词“quickly”。
• It described the meaning of suffix array and also how to built it.它描述的含义，后缀数组以及如何建立它。

5 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

6 lexicographer   

n.辞典编纂人

参考例句：

• A lexicographer's job is to describe the language.词典编纂者的工作就是对语言加以描述。
• The lexicographer knew that the English lexis was changing. 字典编纂者知道英语词汇在不断变化。

7 garner   

v.收藏；取得

参考例句：

• He has garnered extensive support for his proposals.他的提议得到了广泛的支持。
• Squirrels garner nuts for the winter.松鼠为过冬储存松果。