[Lexicog] mentee/mentoree

[Fritz Goerling]

I discussed with David Frank, an SIL colleague on this list, whether
"mentee" or "mentoree" is more common. As he encouraged me to present this
issue to the lex-list, here is what he wrote:

"First of all, the word "mentoree" was new to me. I realize that there is a
lacuna in the English language, where a good word does not seem to be
available for such an important concept. I have heard "mentee" used before,
which doesn't sound quite natural to me either. I am not sure what other
term ought to be used. Since training is not my specialty, I decided to do a
Google search to find out how widely the term "mentoree" is used, and also
"mentee." The term "mentoree" returned only 31,100 hits and "mentee"
returned 801,000 hits, which would seem to indicate to me that the latter is
the more widely-accepted term. But feel free to ask others. I only suggest
that you ask people outside your local circle, since "mentoree" might have
become normalized as a sort of local dialectal term that is not so widely
known elsewhere. . neither of them seems to me to be a good English word."

In training circles, I have heard "mentoree" more than "mentee" but probably
David is right. From the point of view of word formation, "mentoree" as a
derivation which shows where the word comes from, viz. "mentor" seems more
natural to me.
Comments?

Fritz Goerling
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