[…] so long as the independent word, in its individual shape and meaning, is plainly recognized in the combination, so long does this remain a compound rather than a form […] a disguising alteration is needed to help make an affix- a “formative element,” as it is properly termed, in distinction from the “radical element,” the root or base, or the crude-form, to which it is appended.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.124