名詞 pollster:

1. someone who conducts surveys of public opinion
   同義詞：poll taker, headcounter, canvasser

1. Even in closely contested elections, most of the pollsters have called the winners, often by margins close to vote tally. And the pollsters who missed were off by a hair.
   即使在勝負(fù)極為接近的選舉當(dāng)中，多數(shù)民意測驗(yàn)人員都測出了勝利者。勝負(fù)差距往往與點(diǎn)票結(jié)果接近。測驗(yàn)失誤的人也所差微乎其微。

poll.ster

n.（名詞）
One that takes public-opinion surveys.Also called polltaker
民意調(diào)查者：經(jīng)辦民意調(diào)查的人也作 polltaker

<注釋>An understanding of the history of the-ster in pollster may perhaps raise more questions than it answers. In the first place apollster does not have to be a woman, despite the fact that the suffix-ster, originally-estre in Old English, was used to form feminine agent nouns.Hoppestere, for example, meant .female dancer.. But in Old English-estre was occasionally applied to men, although perhaps largely or completely in the case of translations of Latin masculine nouns denoting occupations that were held by women in Anglo-Saxon society.An example isbôcester, .baker,. glossing Latinpistor; it survives as the Modern English nameBaxter. In Middle Englishthe suffix was still largely feminine in the south of Englandbut masculine and feminine in the north,a tendency that became general in English starting with the 'th century.As an example of this tendencyseamster was remade into the feminineseamstress. In Modern English the suffix is usually derogatory.This use probably arose from the occurrence of the suffix with ambiguous verbs,such asgame, .to play at sports, to play at sex,. or with pejorative verbs,such asrime or rhyme. In some modern formations on neutral words-ster is not derogatory, as inyoungster (589), but in most cases,as withpollster (939), -ster has pejorative force.
對于pollster 中的 -ster 的歷史的理解也許會引發(fā)比它能回答的問題更多的問題。 首先pollster 不一定非得是婦女， 盡管-ster 這一后綴， 源于古英語中的-estre ， 被用來構(gòu)成陰性名詞。比如hoppestere 一詞意為.女舞蹈者。. 但在古英語中-estre 也偶爾可以用在男性身上， 雖然也許這種情況大多或者完全出現(xiàn)在表示盎格魯-撒克遜社會中由婦女從事的職業(yè)的一些陽性拉丁文名詞的翻譯中。其中一個(gè)例子是boecester 意為.面包師.， 來自拉丁語的pistor； 這個(gè)詞在現(xiàn)代英語名字Baxter 中保存了下來。 在中世紀(jì)英語中，該后綴在英格蘭南部仍然主要地被用作陰性，但在英格蘭北部卻被同時(shí)用作陽性和陰性，而后一種趨勢自'世紀(jì)以來逐漸在英語中變得普遍。反映這種趨勢的一個(gè)例子是seamster ， 該詞被改造成了陰性的seamstress。 在現(xiàn)代英語中這一后綴通常是含貶義的。這種用法可能是因?yàn)榇撕缶Y與一些有歧義的動(dòng)詞合用而產(chǎn)生的，比如game 可表示.進(jìn)行體育活動(dòng)，進(jìn)行性游戲，. 或者是因?yàn)榕c輕蔑動(dòng)詞合用而產(chǎn)生的，比如rime 或 rhyme。 在某些現(xiàn)代英語中性名詞中，-ster 不是貶損的， 如在youngster (589年）中， 但在大多數(shù)情況下，如pollster (939年）這個(gè)詞中 -ster 仍是有貶義的