[Lexicog] Re: Mentor and Hector - and derivations (was: mentee/mentoree)

[David Frank]

Russian "karaimy" would be analagous to "cherubims" in English, wouldn't it?

I have to confess that I didn't know the English word "hector" and I didn't know that "mentor" came from a character in the Iliad. "Hector" seems to be similar to "heckle" and "heckler" but with a different etymology.

I suspect most native English speakers can sense that the -ee suffix comes from French even as they now use it in new and creative ways. But I realize, as John Roberts pointed out, that what we were discussing was not the -ee suffix itself so much as what it attaches to. You don't have to know the sources -- much less be faithful to them -- to be able to coin a new word like "mentee." But I think that word is going to have to be used a lot more before it starts to feel to us like a legitimate English word, since "ment" doesn't mean anything in itself.

In a way "mentoree" would make more sense than "mentee" especially if you know the source of the word "mentor" and think of it as a single morpheme. But using that logic, a person who does mentoring would be a mentoror.

-- David Frank

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Hayim Sheynin 
  To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 1:21 PM
  Subject: Re: [Lexicog] Mentor and Hector - and derivations (was: mentee/mentoree)


  The double derivations for the same concept (=meaning, sense) exist on the wider scale when an original affix is not taken in account or is not perceived as
  such. For example, a name of person who is a member of a particular Jewish sect in Hebrew is Qara'i (Karaite), Heb. pl. Qara'im (the last syllable is stressed).
  Russian language accepted the plural form as if it is sg. Therefore for plural
  form the Russians add an extra suffix -y. So Karaites in Russian is Karaimy.
  But this pattern is samewhat hectic, even I didn't want to sound mentoring.

  Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling at sil.org> wrote:
    It is interesting that from both heroes, Mentor and Hector, of Homer's Iliad, verbs are derived in English,
    "to mentor" and "to hector"? How come that there are further derivations like "mentorees/mentees" 
    but no "hectorees/hectees? 
    Fritz Goerling
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