In post-Soviet countries, the profession of a realtor is considered quite high paid. What is its essence and how to spell this word, according to modern rules? Let's find out the answers to all these questions.
Who is a realtor
How to spell the word in question will be considered a little later, but first you should learn about the features of this profession.
So, what kind of specialty is hiding under the name "realtor"? This is what real estate agents call themselves. However, in reality, specialists in such operations who are not members of the American National Association of Realtors cannot call themselves that. To understand why this happens, you should consider the history of the noun realtor.
Etymology of the word
This term came to Russian from the American version of the English language. Its appearance was preceded by an entertaining story.
The fact is that in the early twentieth century, real estate transactions were quite actively carried out in the United States. To facilitate this, there were hundreds of intermediaries - estate agents (estate agents). Of course, some of them were scammers. To protect citizens from them, as well as protect the good name of the representatives of this profession, the NAREB (National Association of Real Estate Agents) was created. Its members could be only specialists who have confirmed their reliability and integrity. Thus, everyone who joined it, as it were, received confirmation of their qualifications.
To distinguish members of the association from ordinary real estate agents, in 1916 NAREB coined and registered a specialized term: realtor, which in practice was an abbreviation for the phrase real estate agent (real estate agent).
This name has become not only distinctive for members of the association, but also has become a kind of trademark. That is why in English it is always written with a capital letter.
The new word quickly gained popularity in the real estate business and was even borrowed by some other languages.
It is worth noting that since 1916, NAREB has been sued several times, demanding that their term realtor and ordinary estate agent be used. However, until now, associations have been able to successfully assert their rights, since it was they who invented and implemented the term in English.
Based on this origin, the use of the noun "realtor" in the Russian language in the meaning of "real estate agent" is not entirely correct. Which does not stop him for many years successfully being used as the name of a profession.
What mistakes are made in the Russian spelling of the word "realtor"
Having considered the history of the term "realtor", how to spell a token, it is worth knowing.
Since this term is Anglicism (more precisely, Americanism), its pronunciation is significantly different from spelling. In the original, realtor sounds like ['ri: əltər], and in the British version the pronunciation is slightly different [' rɪəltə].
In connection with this phenomenon in the Russian language there are several common options for how the word is spelled:
- "Realtor."
- "Realtor."
- "Realtor."
- "Realtor."
From this list we can conclude that in this noun there are 2 “problem” letters: the third (“e” or “e”) and the penultimate (“o” or “e”).
Everything is clear with the first problem, since the confusion of the letters “e” and “e” is one of the most common mistakes of the Russian language.
The second difficulty in the word under study is associated with the difference in the spelling and pronunciation of the term. So, in the original it is written through “o”, however, it is pronounced through “e”. In this regard, Russian linguists argue about how to adapt this name to the Russian language: by spelling or sound.
How to spell "realtor" in fact
Despite the fact that this profession has existed in the Russian Federation for more than 20 years, the spelling of its name is still not explicitly approved.
So, in different dictionaries, you can come across different options for how to spell: “realtor”, “realtor”, “realtor” and “realtor”. Moreover, many of these publications are very respectable and respectable. For example, the Big Dictionary of Foreign Words and the Universal Business Dictionary use the realtor option. And the publication "Practical Market Economy" is a "realtor."
At the same time, a full spelling check of this noun is impossible, since all writing methods are fairly well-reasoned.
The point in this dispute was set in 2006. It was then that the Russian Language Institute named after VV Vinogradov RAS was published "Russian Spelling Dictionary". It indicated how to spell "realtor."
In this case, it is sometimes possible to spell the word under study through "e": "realtor." However, it is better to adhere to the recommendations of the Russian Spelling Dictionary.
It is worth noting that the spell checker program built into the Microsoft Office Word text editor allows you to use both of the proposed methods.
Why is this spelling used?
In conclusion, it is worth clarifying the reasons why this linguistic method was chosen by Russian linguists. Most of them claim that this was done by analogy with the "diet", "patient", "entrant" and in other words with "ie" of foreign origin.