[Lexicog] mentee/mentoree

[Fritz Goerling]

David,

 

I have a hard time to see the that the English suffix –ee in the examples
discussed so far should be  “based on the pattern of the feminine form of
the past participle of French verbs.”

 

Fritz

 

In this recent discussion, I don't think anyone has mentioned the obvious
fact that the -ee words are based on the pattern of the feminine form of the
past participle of French verbs. For example there is French employer 'to
employ' with the past tense form employé 'employed' doubling as a masculine
adjectival form and employée as the feminine adjectival form. The
corresponding French noun is employeur, from which we evidently get English
"employer."

 

We can expect to have some -ee words that don't have a -er or -or
counterpart, such as "divorcee" or "amputee." On the other hand, I checked
an unabridged dictionary just now and did find "divorcer" listed as "one who
divorces."

 

-- David Frank

 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: David Tuggy <mailto:david_tuggy at sil.org>  

To: lexicographylist@ <mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com>
yahoogroups.com 

Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 4:58 PM

Subject: Re: [Lexicog] mentee/mentoree

 

-ee spawns oddities, it seems to me. Two others I have enjoyed, and seen in
fairly high-falutin’ publications, are baptee (=one who has been baptized)
and dediquee.

--David Tuggy



Benjamin Barrett wrote: 

The normal formation is to add -er/-or to get the person doing it and 
add -ee to the receiver of the action. So employ-> employer, employee, 
address -> addresser, addressee. There isn't a verb for mentor, but 
using back formation you get: mentor <- ment and then ment -> mentee. BB
 
Fritz Goerling wrote:

I discussed with David Frank, an SIL colleague on this list, whether 
”mentee” or “mentoree” is more common.

 

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