Is GENERICIDE a bad choice or morphemes?

[Wilson Gray]

I've always been annoyed by the fact that my company ID card reads
"RETIREE" instead of "RETIRED." Well, maybe not. I was forced into
retirement, so, perhaps, "RETIREE" is fitting, in my case.

-Wilson Gray

On Mar 4, 2005, at 4:21 PM, sagehen wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Is GENERICIDE a bad choice or morphemes?
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>
>> John Baker writes:
>> .... But there are other words that are used in senses at odds with
>> their
>> morphologies.  Consider escapee; one would suppose that the person who
>> escapes is the escaper, and the person or thing escaped is the
>> escapee,
>> but a different meaning prevails.... <
>  ~~~~~~~~
> "Absentee" is an example that I have always thought particularly
> silly-looking.
> In the case of  frequently-seen "retiree" one could suppose the
> retirement
> was involuntary, which suggests another possibility: "resignee" for
> people
> actually fired but who are described, for political reasons, as having
> resigned (in order to spend more time with their families, or
> whatever).
> A. Murie
>
> ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>
>