What do you call a person who suggested something? A suggester?

Question

Let me give an example for context:

If someone posted a question here on the site and I wanted to describe them, I can say "the asker" or "the poster".

Now, if someone suggests an edit on that post, how would I describe them in a similar manner (using a single word)?

Is the word "suggester" correct? (I couldn't find any usage of it.) If it's not, I'm looking for a word that has this meaning. It doesn't have to be derived from "suggest". A synonym would suffice as long as it fits in the context (e.g., "advisor", etc. wouldn't work).

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Update:

^{(extra info; feel free to ignore)}

This post appears to have attracted a lot of people so let me try to clarify more.

The example that I used above is very similar to the real-life situation but let me include the exact context that I wanted to use it in anyway. I was trying to come up with a meaningful variable name to use in a software development project that I'm working on. The situation is as follows:

A client suggests something (actually, an edit to an existing item or a proposal for a new item) and I need to have two variables to refer to the following:

• The client that suggested the thing.
• The id of the client who suggested the thing.

I couldn't just use Client and ClientId because it would be ambiguous in this particular situation. I ended up using SuggestedBy and SuggestedByClientId. Although the second one isn't perfect (I think), I believe it reflects the intention pretty well. I might change it later to Proposer and ProposerClientIdas suggested by Jason in the answer below or just keep the word "proposer" in mind for future use cases.

Answer 1

I have updated my answer based on several comments I've received.

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Although it seems that the word suggester does actually exist as a variant of suggest (per Merriam-Webster), I find it so uncommon that, while understandable, it would give most people some pause on reading it.

I would say that a more common word is proposer.

[Merriam-Webster, propose]
1 : to form or put forward a plan or intention
// man proposes, but God disposes

Other Words from propose
proposer noun

In the right context, such as fields to be filled in on a form, the word would be quite appropriate:

Proposal: (____)

Proposer: (____)

Approved: (Yes / No)

Also, I've been informed that proposer is frequently used in formal debates.

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As for comparing suggester to proposer, Google Ngram Viewer indicates that proposer is far more common, at least in print:

As I final note, I will add that while proposer might sound strange to some, so too would asker and poster, as used in the question. Just as it would be more common to say the person who asked or the person who posted, it would also be more common to say the person who proposed (or the person who suggested). None of these single nouns are as common as a longer phrase; however, proposer is still relatively much more common than suggester.

Answer 2

I don't know of any one English word that means "the person who made the suggestion". You have to use several words or a phrase. Like, "the person who made the suggestion".

Based on general patterns of building English words, one might think that "suggester" would be appropriate. But that's just not a word in common use. If you used it, I suppose people would easily guess what you mean, but it would definitely sound odd. If you were writing a long discussion about people who make suggestions, to avoid having to repeat a long phrase over and over you could say, "In this paper I will refer to people who make suggestions as 'suggesters'", and most readers would probably accept that. But I wouldn't use it with no explanation.

Answer 3

A single, correct, commonly used and unambiguous word exists, and that word (as Jason Bassford states) is "proposer". Jason's answer does not need to be hedged around with the caveats that it is; when something has been put forward, suggested, floated, hypothesised, ventured, then if you refer to "the proposer" the average English speaker will easily understand you to mean the person who has made the suggestion. No-one will suddenly think someone is about to get married.

This would have been a comment but I'm not able to comment.

Answer 4

A proposal is an act of submitting a structured plan of action for approval. Someone who proposes something is typically waiting for a yes/no response from an approver.

This is not quite synonymous with suggest, which means to offer an idea but not stick around to wait for approval. Hence why companies put out suggestion boxes and not proposal boxes.

Because a suggestion process doesn't involve waiting for approval, there's usually no need to link back to whoever is suggesting.

Now, if someone suggests an edit on that post, how would I describe them in a similar manner (using a single word)?

Can the edit be approved or denied? Does the person making the edit receive notice of approval or denail? Then you have a propose situation and not a suggest situation and should use the term propose instead.

Answer 5

I would put forward the following variable name; composed by Suggestion and maker. A maker is a very common noun, it refers to a person who makes something, and to "make a suggestion" is an extremely common collocation.

SuggestionMaker
IdSuggestionMaker

In written English it would probably be “suggestion maker”. Sorry, it's not a single word–although the compound noun suggestion-maker would be acceptable–its meaning remains very clear nevertheless.

I Googled, and lo and behold the term is used, with and without the hyphen.

• The distinction between suggestion-maker and suggestion-receiver that is at work in all couples can be extrapolated to the level of the crowd.

• If the suggestion-maker is not logged in to your website, they will see an option to log in. Any content in the suggestion text box will not be saved if the suggestion-maker is not already logged in.

• No, I wasn't aware. I thought that the suggestion maker either didn't get to vote, or his vote was automatically considered a keep.

• Are you a big thinker? A question asker? A suggestion maker? A life-long learner? Do you speak up when you need to and grasp opportunities in both hands?

Answer 6

First example no one has said Editor

They attempted to edit, that became a suggested edit.

The editor's work was approved

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Second example I agree with proposer, just going to add more words into the mix

Second example sounds like you have a "Improvement" object and the person who suggested it was the

submitter who submitted

creator who created

author who wrote

contributor who contributed

requestor who requested

a improvement request/change request

Answer 7

Surprised not to see "proponent" here:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proponent

One who makes a proposal or proposition.