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Is mentee an acceptable word?
21 Answers
I was on a training course yesterday where we discussed acting as mentor for less experienced team members. Everyone seemed to be using the term 'mentee' meaning the person being supported.
Learning Skills Council Jargon - mentee.
Is mentee an acceptable word is it just another piece of made-up modern liberal pinko jargon?
Learning Skills Council Jargon - mentee.
Is mentee an acceptable word is it just another piece of made-up modern liberal pinko jargon?
Answers
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Personally I loathe this usage of our language. Words like attendee etc do not exist as far as I am concerned. If I write minutes for a meeting I use present to start a list of those who were there.
With regard to the first answer, I would be interested to know which dictionary it was in.
I have to put up with phrases like "ball park figure" and "curve ball" where I work. Keep these things where they belong across the pond!
With regard to the first answer, I would be interested to know which dictionary it was in.
I have to put up with phrases like "ball park figure" and "curve ball" where I work. Keep these things where they belong across the pond!
Seems to be a new word AskOxford. It is just such a clumsy ugly word.
I used to work in customer support and the customer was known as an 'actionee' - person being acted upon.
I used to work in customer support and the customer was known as an 'actionee' - person being acted upon.
What, in the name of goodness, is either "liberal" or "pinko" about the word mentee? Sure, it is a "jargon". Sure, also, it was "made up", but wasn't every single other word in our lexicon, too?
It is listed in the online version of The Oxford English Dictionary, with an earliest recorded use dated 1965, and in Chambers.
The plain fact is that words such as mentee - just like residential as a noun - have been felt to fill one vocabulary need or another by one group or another. Consequently, they will use it whether the rest of us approve or not. Mentor/mentee is not a whit different from lessor/lessee or a host of similar constructions.
Get used to it!
It is listed in the online version of The Oxford English Dictionary, with an earliest recorded use dated 1965, and in Chambers.
The plain fact is that words such as mentee - just like residential as a noun - have been felt to fill one vocabulary need or another by one group or another. Consequently, they will use it whether the rest of us approve or not. Mentor/mentee is not a whit different from lessor/lessee or a host of similar constructions.
Get used to it!
Yes, although the OED says no such thing, it is listed as 'non-standard' in Chambers 2008, but that is for the simple reason that the word was - until recently - almost solely an Americanism. Clearly, it has now found its way across the Atlantic as evidenced by the question here!
In a similar way, the word 'employee' started life as an Americanism in the middle of the 19th century. Is there any suggestion that we should get rid of that, too?
Any such borrowing will inevitably go through a period of being considered non-standard by some before we adopt it wholeheartedly. As I suggested earlier, we need to "get used to" them.
In a similar way, the word 'employee' started life as an Americanism in the middle of the 19th century. Is there any suggestion that we should get rid of that, too?
Any such borrowing will inevitably go through a period of being considered non-standard by some before we adopt it wholeheartedly. As I suggested earlier, we need to "get used to" them.
When I had to go on conference calls I and my colleagues used to place bets as to which rubbish phrase would be used the most. I won only once when "touch base" was used approximately 10 times....and I have refused to provide a "guesstimate" concerning budgetary requirements. (I do however think the chancellor does this)
Good for you Q... One sure way for the English language to become as dead as, say, Chicomuceltec, is for it to become static. I'm all for staidism in it's fullest definition, but to disallow newer words simply because they, initially, leave a taste resembling Chinese Thousand Year Old Eggs in one's mouth is to become a Prescriptionist... to which I can only say ... Ewww!
I, on the other hand, would probably object, at least at this juncture, to the implied verb form of the word "mentee" (not to be misconstrued with the overly large sea-cow type animal residing in the Florida Everglades) of "to ment", from which our noun does not proceed.
"Dictionaries are not the language; they are useful snapshots of the language."
I, on the other hand, would probably object, at least at this juncture, to the implied verb form of the word "mentee" (not to be misconstrued with the overly large sea-cow type animal residing in the Florida Everglades) of "to ment", from which our noun does not proceed.
"Dictionaries are not the language; they are useful snapshots of the language."
Again, guesstimate started life in the USA in the 1930s but it was firmly ensconced over here by the late 1940s. It's been with us for six decades and used by the Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society and by Robert Watson-Watt - a key British physicist in the development of radar - in his writings.
I can't imagine, given its longevity here and those authoritative figures who felt perfectly happy to use the word, why any other Brit should baulk at using it now. It's a superb - almost Joycean! - word!
I can't imagine, given its longevity here and those authoritative figures who felt perfectly happy to use the word, why any other Brit should baulk at using it now. It's a superb - almost Joycean! - word!
I agree that a language has to adapt or die but I feel that it is better in the long run if it adapts to include new ideas , things and concepts rather than create new words for things which are already perfectly well described. This is the main problem that I find with 'Americanisms' which generally look like they are the work of people who don't have a good knowledge of the existing language and just 'make something up'
Forsooth thou dost hath a point, master Quizmonster.
Language does evolve and not every new word is immediately accepted - at the time. But surely there's a difference between creativity in coining new words and just adding a suffix to an existing root?
Is a passenger being driven a drivee? Is a victim being murdered a murderee? Is a questioner being answered an answeree? Is a creditor owed money an owee? Is a soggy-shirted parent being urinated upon a wee-wee-ee?
Still, lets move forward, stick this one up the flagpole and move on to the low-hanging fruit. Perhaps we should have an idea shower to push the envelope, top-slice the resouces and iterate a holistic approach to roll-out a strategic person-centred paradigm. Let's touch base when you've got some face time.
PS. the Venerable Bede was from the North East, so would he have spoken Latin with a Geordie accent?
Language does evolve and not every new word is immediately accepted - at the time. But surely there's a difference between creativity in coining new words and just adding a suffix to an existing root?
Is a passenger being driven a drivee? Is a victim being murdered a murderee? Is a questioner being answered an answeree? Is a creditor owed money an owee? Is a soggy-shirted parent being urinated upon a wee-wee-ee?
Still, lets move forward, stick this one up the flagpole and move on to the low-hanging fruit. Perhaps we should have an idea shower to push the envelope, top-slice the resouces and iterate a holistic approach to roll-out a strategic person-centred paradigm. Let's touch base when you've got some face time.
PS. the Venerable Bede was from the North East, so would he have spoken Latin with a Geordie accent?
As your third paragraph lists, Padanarm, there are many words of this class to which we don't add ee. However we Brits did create mortgagee (1584), nominee (1675), payee (1758), examinee (1788) and licensee (1868) to name but a handful. We've been at it for yonks! Are you equally unhappy about all of these?
On a skim through the entries for mentor in the OED and Chambers, it seems the closest synonyms are adviser, guide, counsellor, tutor and trainer. We don't have advisee, guidee or counsellee, though tutee (1927) and trainee (1885) do exist. Personally, I do not myself believe that either of these last two contain the element of genuine care or even 'affection' that mentor suggests. So I'd still be perfectly content with mentee. What would you suggest?
It's thou hast or thou dost have, by the way. Hath is third person singular.
I always had the notion that stars for answers should be awarded for their clarity and effort to enlighten the questioner rather than just because they agreed with him/her. But what the hey!
On a skim through the entries for mentor in the OED and Chambers, it seems the closest synonyms are adviser, guide, counsellor, tutor and trainer. We don't have advisee, guidee or counsellee, though tutee (1927) and trainee (1885) do exist. Personally, I do not myself believe that either of these last two contain the element of genuine care or even 'affection' that mentor suggests. So I'd still be perfectly content with mentee. What would you suggest?
It's thou hast or thou dost have, by the way. Hath is third person singular.
I always had the notion that stars for answers should be awarded for their clarity and effort to enlighten the questioner rather than just because they agreed with him/her. But what the hey!
To be honest, C, I simply borrowed the words from Marge Simpson of your wonderful TV cartoon series, so I have never seen them written down. As such, I think they're addressed - in despair - to the gods rather than any other human being. Her 'hey/hay' is merely a euphemistic version of 'hell'. Given her husband-created life-problems, she is reduced to using it often, as am I on AnswerBank!
As far as I am aware, we Brits use hay only in reference to dried grass fodder or, much more archaically and obscurely, to mean a hedge, a country dance or a strike in fencing. Hey is our version of the interjection.
As far as I am aware, we Brits use hay only in reference to dried grass fodder or, much more archaically and obscurely, to mean a hedge, a country dance or a strike in fencing. Hey is our version of the interjection.
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I�m not a fan of mentee either. I think it�s because some words ending � �or� involve an action, an actor acts and a sailor sails for example but a mentor does not ment. Similarly, an employee is employed but a mentee is not mented.
Odysseus needed someone to look after his son when he went off to war and the guy he asked was named Mentor and that�s why we use the word mentor.
Odysseus needed someone to look after his son when he went off to war and the guy he asked was named Mentor and that�s why we use the word mentor.
EDDIE51, as I pointed out in the second paragraph of my very first answer above, mentee is in the OED.
The last print edition of that dictionary was produced in the late 1980s, so any word that has come into use since that date is generally to be found in the online edition. Although mentee had existed in the USA since the mid-60s, it clearly had not made sufficient impact on the editors over here to make it into the printed work.
TCL, re the 'or' ending...the verb nominate gave rise to the agent-word, nominator. We might, therefore, have expected the persons so named to be nominatees, but they aren't, they're nominees. The 'at' and 'or' elements just disappeared in the same way as in mentee.
The Mentor/Telemachus relationship was the reason I referred earlier to our word, mentor, as involving not just teaching but also affection. None of the usual synonyms for mentor cover that point. I suppose we could use prot�g�, but that comes from beyond our shores just as mentee does. If the Pond is a no-no, surely the Channel would have to be also!
The last print edition of that dictionary was produced in the late 1980s, so any word that has come into use since that date is generally to be found in the online edition. Although mentee had existed in the USA since the mid-60s, it clearly had not made sufficient impact on the editors over here to make it into the printed work.
TCL, re the 'or' ending...the verb nominate gave rise to the agent-word, nominator. We might, therefore, have expected the persons so named to be nominatees, but they aren't, they're nominees. The 'at' and 'or' elements just disappeared in the same way as in mentee.
The Mentor/Telemachus relationship was the reason I referred earlier to our word, mentor, as involving not just teaching but also affection. None of the usual synonyms for mentor cover that point. I suppose we could use prot�g�, but that comes from beyond our shores just as mentee does. If the Pond is a no-no, surely the Channel would have to be also!
some -ee words don't fit the pattern, such as attendee, which Electrochem mentioned. It doesn't mean someone who is attended (it's the meeting that is attended); and someone who does attend isn't an attendor. I think these are invented by analogy with refugee, which doesn't mean someone who is refuged. None of these seems to make much sense and I wouldn't mind if they all vanished one day. 'Mentee' I don't have a problem with - it sounds horrible but I suppose that's just because it's new. And when we start to refer to students as teachees, that'll sound horrible too.
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