A point of language

[princealbertofb]

Sorry but I am not sure I agree with you here on a general point of language. Interviewer and interviewee are clearly defined.



Disagree here too. The whateveree has to be an active participant in the process. The 'mindfuckee' is merely a victim.

Sorry for being pernickety.

I think some people on this thread are failing to see the point of the question.

If we go along with the Harrap's 21st Century Dictionary's definitions of such suffixes as --ER and --EE, you'll find that you have to be able to define the action performed by the verb.

-er
suffix, forming nouns, signifying
1 the person or thing performing the action of the verb * driver * heater.
2 a person from a specified town or city * Londoner * New Yorker.
[Anglo-Saxon -ere.]
-ee
suffix, forming nouns, signifying
1 a person who is the object of an action of a specified verb * payee * employee.
2 a person in a specified condition * absentee * escapee.
3 a person with a specified association or connection * bargee.
[From French -é or -ée.]

Thus we need to know how the act of teabagging is defined. But depending on who you are in the act, that definition will be different, whereupon it is difficult to see who the teabagger is and who the teabaggee is.
Is the teabagger the one who dips his T-bag into the other's mouth or the one who waters the T-bag? Is the teabaggee the one passively receiving the other partner's eager and active attention, or the one who actively dips the T-bag to be appreciated?

No, I still don't think it is easy to define who's active and who's passive, which is normally what these endings imply, because in this type of activity both are active in one way or another... As the dictionary seems to state, you need to be the subject or the object of the verb to be T-bagging or be T-bagged. But when you say Alan tea-bagged Barney, are we sure Alan was tea-bagging? And are we sure that Barney wasn't also tea-bagging? Reversely, would we be able to say for sure that Barney was being tea-bagged while Alan wasn't?

In Alan fucked Barney, or Alan was fucked by Barney, there is the notion of the penetrator and the one being penetrated (the receiver end) that comes into account, so it's quite easy to say which one's the fucker and which one's the fuckee. Note that in the active and passive sentences above, both Alan's & Barney's roles have been switched, the fucker becoming the fuckee and vice-versa.

[marshlander]

Sorry but I am not sure I agree with you here on a general point of language. Interviewer and interviewee are clearly defined.
Sorry for being pernickity.

Sorry, this argument went way over my head Of course interviewer and interviewee are clearly defined, as are (I suspect) a majority of meanings using this construction. I wasn't referring to such obvious usage :confused:

[marshlander]

I think some people on this thread are failing to see the point of the question ...

Thank you, lover, for clarifying the confusion

A useful technical contribution to this utterly futile discussion I'm beginning to wish I hadn't raised

[fredv3b]

I know there are words nouns were -er and -ee are confused, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. I suppose you could say teabagger and teabagged, similar to hunter and hunted.

But that is my point. It is precisely NOT like hunter and hunted where the actions are more clearly defined. :confused:

Sorry but I am not sure I agree with you here on a general point of language. Interviewer and interviewee are clearly defined.

Sorry, this argument went way over my head Of course interviewer and interviewee are clearly defined, as are (I suspect) a majority of meanings using this construction. I wasn't referring to such obvious usage :confused:

Marshy,

I think I may have misunderstood you. I thought you were making a general statement that nouns with er and ed suffixes were clearly defined whereas those with er and ee suffixes were not. I was using the interview example to dispute this generalisation. I apologise if I have misunderstood you.

[marshlander]

Marshy,

I think I may have misunderstood you ...

No harm done, Fred. I'm sorry I didn't make myself clearer

x

[Shadow]

I would have simply suggested that the -er (or -or) is held by the person DOING the dominant action - e.g. the driver, interviewer, lessor, etc., etc., and the -ee is the person on the receiving end - interviewee, lessee, etc., etc.

... but that's just my two penneth, and I will FREELY admit that I haven't had the time to really read this thread (nor am I unfortunately likely to have the time).

:redface:.

mile:.

xx

!?!?! Shadow !?!?!