®Ros

By Jacqueline Schaalje

Additions that are glued to the end of a word are called suffixes. (From Latin: Suf comes from sub, which means under, and fix means attach.)

There are many words in English to which you can add –ist or –ian and they will mean a person.

For instance if we take the word science. If you add –ist you will get the person who practises science, a scientist.

Someone who practises art is called an artist.

Someone who plays music is a musician.

And someone whose job it is to make people look beautiful is a beautician.

As you can see, sometimes you can just add the –ist and –ian, without changing the word.

In other cases, you need to tweak (= change) the word a little bit.

Here are some more examples:

Subject	Person
Motor	Motorist
Electricity	Electrician
Paris	Parisian
Christ	Christian
Piano	Pianist
History	Historian
Buddha	Buddhist
Economy	Economist
Bicycle	Cyclist
Politics	Politician
Psychiatry	Psychiatrist
Terror	Terrorist
Flower	Florist
Comedy	Comedian
Journal	Journalist
Parachute	Parachutist
Language	Linguist
Archaeology	Archaeologist

Want to check yourself?

Do the quiz online here. 

Fill in a person ending in –ist or -ian.

Subject – Person

1 Language – ____________

2 Beauty – _____________

3 Economics – _____________

4 Flowers – _____________

5 Terror – _____________

6 Art – _____________

7 History – _____________

8 Parachute – _____________

9 Psychology – _____________

10 Politics – _____________

11 Magic – _____________

12 Buddha – _____________

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