The commenter who disparaged the term "mentee" wrote,
While I will reluctantly overlook the use of "Mentor" as a verb (that battle is lost), I refuse to acknowledge the existence of the verb "to ment" that "mentee" necessarily implies.
As it happens, it's true that "mentor" comes not from a verb "to ment," but rather -- according to the OED -- from "the name of a character in F. de S. de la Mothe-Fénelon's Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699), after ancient Greek [Mentor], the name of a character in the Odyssey, in whose likeness Athena appears to Telemachus and acts as his guide and adviser."
But so what? "Workaholic" doesn't come from a longstanding suffix "-aholic" meaning "addicted to"; it comes from the last syllable of "alcohol." Likewise with "telethon," which I take it stems indirectly from the place name "Marathon." We can all come up with more examples (consider the various "-gate" scandals).
True, these words tend to have a mildly humorous feel, at least at first; so does, in my view, "mentee." But accepting them hardly "necessarily implies" any particular etymology. It just necessarily implies a recognition that English words come about in lots of different ways, and that stems are often borrowed from one word into another in ways that do not fit well with the source words' own origins.
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There are 749 Google hits for "Haircutgate." 750 now, I guess.
I'v always found "mentee" to be silly, like "de-plane." We already have words for these functions, protégé and disembark, and I see no reason to substitute silly made up replacements for perfectly good words.
I like the image but English is Germanic in origin, not Celtic.
Adding endings like "aholic", "onomics" and "gate" shows true poverty of imagination (as does the pathetic "herstory", especially given the alternative "hystery").
Dishonorable mention to various perversions of "incentive" as well: to determine whehter "incent" is worse than "incentivize" we will probably need a new ... "metric".
I'm firmly convinced that the definition of "meme" has become "thing on the internet that gave me teh lulz."
Google reveals only 28 examples, some in law journals. Let's hope it remains rare: "tortfeasee".
At least the "-or" suffix in "tortfeasor" actually derives from a verb form:So the "-ee" suffix is arguably grammatically appropriate than in "mentee".
Nonetheless, the word "tortfeasee" grates.
--Homer Simpson
In re: disembark, that's an interesting middle-ground concept.
From a purely descriptive standpoint, "de-plane" means what it says, somewhat accurately describes the action being taken, and has slipped into at the least the parlance of its industry.
From a purely prescriptive standpoint, "disembark" is not an accurate term because it only means to leave a boat. Well, okay, this depends on how strict of a prescriptive view someone takes, really, sort of like the people who say that "decimate" only means "reduce by a tenth", or that someone cannot possibly feel "nauseous".
Just a curious thought from someone who used to play devil's advocate to linguistics Ph.D. candidates for fun.
Oh, for the good old days when words had pure origins, unlike the cockamamie neologisms they coin nowadays.
My friend Nadine is convinced she accidentally coined "orientate" as a joke. That is, she made it up as a joke and was chagrined to find out later that it caught on seriously.
If mentor and mentee have a parting of ways, is one of them "demented"?
English is also the accepted language for diplomacy not just because America is a super power, but because English is just flat BIGGER. There are almost twice as many words in the English language as the next largest language. (French) Using English allows you to be more precise and avoid diplomatic misunderstandings.
Shakespeare invented over 1,700 words himself.
I fail to see what the commenter was complaining about.
I've heard these claims for awhile but I've always been a bit sucpicious of them. What is our reason to believe that Shakespeare himself made up so many words rather than thinking they were common among a certain class of people (perhaps illiterate ones who didn't leave us a written record) and Shakespeare was the first to put them in a work that was worth keeping around for a couple hundred years?
But if you're trying to make a substantive point about the Need To Maintain High Standards If We Are To Be Understood, then please note that (1) "workaholic" makes perfect sense, even if its etymology is less pure than some like, and (2) the problem with "yakka foob mog" is that no-one understands them; people understand "workaholic" just fine. And chumble spuzz to you, too.
Sometimes the aesthetic effect really does matter.
Then "deplane is a natural--if you, like I, are 6'2"-25 stone and have ride in steerage.
And yes, I see that I left a closing quote and a "to" out of the preceding post. I seem never to be able to see those until too late.
"My uncles got married and now I have nuance."
I got a million of 'em.
Protege is not good for typing because I can't find the accent marks on my keyboard. And protege doesn't read right without the accents. It's too French. It will never Anglicize properly. And protege has a much different feel than mentee. I would think a mentee is someone in a formal, but slightly awkward mentor-mentee program, getting a little guidance on how to build a career within a certain field or organization. A protege admires, promotes, and tries to be like, the person they follow.
So, who does a protege follow, if it's not a mentor? We need a new word, protaegeon: person who a protege follows.
Thanks, Chris. Now I don't feel so alone.
I have no idea how I would survive at this institution without recourse to the word "sweatbeetle-dickweed"; the provenance of which, near as I can tell, is Mystery Science Theater 3,000. Without it, I'd have to call the associate dean *by name*. And when you do that, it sometimes summons him. Which supports one of my theories about him, but which, nonetheless, is creepy.
Of old, the Cromulens made those decisions, but ever since discovering a wormhole in some wormwood, they've gone absinthe.
diagnose from diagnosis
kidnap from kidnapper
intuit from intuition
One of my favorites, and one that makes the formation easy to understand, is "to cherrypick" from the word "cherry-picker." Also, "burger" from "hamburger."
"Workaholic" and "telethon" are a similar kind of formation that breaks words up among imagined roots, though I can't recall the name for it. "Helipad" from "helicopter" is a good example--the roots actually break between "helico" and "pter" (spiral/wing). Also, "the Batcopter."
For those not sufficiently up with the classics, look it up!
(And, of course, the Mentor advising Telemachus wasn't even really Mentor.)
I'm pretty sure this was the result of somebody splitting carjack into its component parts. If you can call someone a carjacker, it seems reasonable to say that they jack cars. Once you've made that jump, it's only logical to assume that "jack" is a synonym for "steal". And "carjack" itself is of course a back-formation from "hijack".
I have no clue why "bogart" was also used to mean "steal", though.
I stand corrected. Is 'Anglic' a word?
Lee David: glad to be of service.