Is this word new, or just new to me?

If even I have heard it before, it can’t be all that new and OED dates it from 1965.  But it does seem to be a trend to form new -ee words, or revive older ones.  Who knows what’s next - reader/readee for a book, perhaps?*

*for the literal-minded - feeble joke

Canio has been using that word for 120 years.

I work in postgraduate and continuing medical education in London, and in this and allied fields it has been the standard word for at least the last seven years. I was once asked if I’d like to move sideways into a team setting up a mentoring scheme, and turned it down at least in part because I couldn’t face using the word eight hours a day, five days a week.

In the context of Eliza’s joke (Eliza, take a tip from me: I don’t make feeble jokes, I make “wry observations"), the use of “reader” to describe electronic devices that store and display digital texts (with the devices and that usage increasingly common) makes me wonder if “readee” will paradoxically come to mean the person doing the reading (cf. “escapee").

{/wry observation}

When I first began working as an attorney (thirteen or so years ago), “mentoring” was all the rage.  Many attorneys began, somewhat jocularly, referring to the recipient of a mentor’s wisdom as a mentee.  This quickly degenerated into silly puns about mentors and their “manatees.” My sense was that the users of the term had no idea if “mentee” was a standard and accepted term or not, and that they used it because they saw it as a logical, if awkward-sounding, corollary to mentor.

Dr. Techie - 21 February 2013 08:16 AM

In the context of Eliza’s joke (Eliza, take a tip from me: I don’t make feeble jokes, I make “wry observations"), the use of “reader” to describe electronic devices that store and display digital texts (with the devices and that usage increasingly common) makes me wonder if “readee” will paradoxically come to mean the person doing the reading (cf. “escapee").

{/wry observation}

The -ee suffix is used for the objects of the base verb if the verb is transitive or the subject if the verb is intransitive.  Cf. ergative-absolutive languages.

Canio has been using that word for 120 years.

Clearly, you’re an opera buff, OP Tipping, and are making a play on words, from the Italian “mentire”—to tell a lie......witty indeed, but maybe a bit obscure --- perhaps more suited to the website parolorigini.com ;-)

In all seriousness (if it’s possible to be serious about such a silly thing), “mentee” is a truly awful expression (it can hardly be called a word, by anyone who enjoys words) .... by analogy, how about “stentee” for someone who gets shouted at very loudly, say the referee at a soccer match who makes an obviously wrong decision?

;-)

Canio has been using that word for 120 years.

Clearly, you’re an opera buff, OP Tipping, and are making a play on words, from the Italian “mentire”—to tell a lie......witty indeed, but maybe a bit obscure --- perhaps more suited to the website parolorigini.com ;-)

Ah. Actually I was referring to Eliza’s use of the term “readee”.

Come to think of it, surely papyrus was a bit readee.

OP Tipping - 21 February 2013 01:11 AM

Is this word new, or just new to me?

We discussed, in passing, “mentee” back here

I see from the former thread that I’ve been offering stale merchandise… soory about that. Don’t know how I missed the earlier thread.

OP Tipping! You strike me as a bit of a Wag (and I don’t mean one of Svinyard118’s dziggetai guesses)!

lionello - 22 February 2013 12:12 AM

In all seriousness (if it’s possible to be serious about such a silly thing), “mentee” is a truly awful expression (it can hardly be called a word, by anyone who enjoys words) .... by analogy, how about “stentee” for someone who gets shouted at very loudly, say the referee at a soccer match who makes an obviously wrong decision?

;-)

And, staying with the Iliad, someone who is bullied or hectored would be a hectee. BTW I always thought it terribly unfair that the gallant Hector should lend his name to bullying or blustering. Such qualities would be completely alien to the character drawn by Homer. They would fit Ajax however like a glove. Still, I guess it’s preferable to be associated with bullying than with loos! (Popular Elizabethan pun: Ajax = a jakes).

lionello - 22 February 2013 12:12 AM

… how about “stentee” for someone who gets shouted at very loudly, say the referee at a soccer match who makes an obviously wrong decision?

;-)

Cool.  I’m going to start using it.  Be great to refer to baseball umpires.

And, staying with the Iliad, someone who is bullied or hectored would be a hectee.

Trust aldiboronti to come up with a neat cap for the joke. Well done, aldi!!

Ajax = a jakes

In Leftpondia one might use Ajax to clean a jakes.

Per Wikipedia: The original slogan for Ajax powder was “Stronger than dirt!”. This was a reference to the muscular character Ajax of Greek mythology. Some Ajax dish soaps now feature the trademarked slogan “Stronger than grease!” which may be an even more overt reference to the Trojan warrior, with “grease” being a pun on “Greece.” However, the name Ajax may also reference an old British name for toilet, “the jakes”.