Is tattooee a word?

[Sarah2412]

Please can someone settle an argument for me. Is tattooee a word? I don't think it is!

[JUNKMAN]

It means one who has a tattoo

[Quizmonster]

Double 'e' can be added to many words to suggest the person who has something done to them as opposed to the 'er' ending which suggests the one who does it. Thus 'tattooee' and 'tattoer' are perfectly acceptable words, even if they have so far not appeared in any dictionary.
Part of a clue in the Mephisto crossword in yesterday's Sunday Times referred to "one drawn fancifully" and the answer was 'Yankee"...ie one yanked (pulled or drawn).
So, perhaps tattooee' is fanciful, too!

[robbiefan]

no or maybe it means someone with a tattoo???

[Quizmonster]

By the way, I did not mean to suggest that 'tattooer' didn't exist in English in my earlier response. It has, in fact, been used alongside 'tattooist' since the 1700s. 'Tattooee' has not yet caught on with dictionary editors, but that does not mean it is not a current word. They generally don't list "i-pod" either!

[heathfield]

The one who has the tattoo could also be described as 'the tattooed'.

[jno]

Quizmonster, you'll have noticed that the ee ending is nowadays being applied, especially in America, to people who do things too - like retiree, which doesn't necessarily mean someone who's been sacked. I suspect this is the influence of 'refugee'.

Sarah, I think it's probably ok, though any word ending in ooee is going to look a bit odd (unless it's the Australian way of calling cooee!)

Is this where they live?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/ thumb/7/74/Starwars-tatooine.jpg/800px-Starwar s-tatooine.jpg

[Quizmonster]

Quite, J, but there is still frequently a 'passive' element to these 'ee' words...ie a retiree has been retired - often against his/her will! - a refugee has been obliged to seek refuge by circumstances and so on.

Sarah, the verb 'examine' dates back to the 14th century but the noun 'examinee' not until the late 18th century...'employ' to the 15th century and 'employee' to the 19th. The fact is that these 'ee' words seem to be always 'lurking about' - perhaps for centuries - awaiting their day to be born!
Obviously, you saw or heard the word 'tattooee' and hence your question...now you've used it, too, as have I. A Google search will reveal that so have thousands of other people.

Looks like its day has come!

[jno]

I don't think that's the case any more, Quizmonster, at least not in the USA. A retiree is simply a retired person; the word carries no overtones of compulsory retirement at all. (Googling does reveal very occasional use of the words sackee and firee.) An attendee is someone who attends (a meeting), an escapee is someone who escapes (the word escaper seems barely to exist). Has a divorcee ever referred only to the party sued for divorce?

All this is a shame, as the er/ee distinction used to be reasonably clear and logical.

[Quizmonster]

I did say 'frequently', J, not 'invariably'! Are you saying that a person who has been compulsorily retired would not also be called a 'retiree'? That's what I was trying to say...that the word would be used without distinguishing whether the process had been voluntary or not.
But what the hey! The key factor here is that 'tattooee' is a word. I hereby agree with what you would doubtless claim...that there are very few people who have been tattooed against their will!

[Gromit]

Quizmonster

To say you are an agreeee would be silly wouldn't it?

[Quizmonster]

No, I like it, Gromit! That's in the same way as I like 'Invernessshire' , 'headmistressship' and similar constructs.

[jno]

giving the word 'attendee' some more thought has reminded me of absentee, Quizmonster, which like refugee has long been used without implying any sense of compulsion and may likewise be a source of the gradual change in use of the ee ending. It has also - still mostly jocularly, I think - given rise to the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presenteeism

[Quizmonster]

As your link suggests, J, presenteeism is often caused by a "fear of loss" of income etc...ie the employee feels he/she has to get in to work, which isn't really attending strictly voluntarily. In the same way, the refugee feels he/she has to escape the intolerable circumstances forced upon him/her. Not many evictees volunteer for the action they are being subjected to. And there are lots of similar unwished-for '-ee' situations.
The minute I posted my last-but-one response "...that there are very few people who have been tattooed against their will!" I was convinced someone would come along and refer to the multitudes of Jews who had numbers tattooed on their arms by the Germans. One could obviously say that these particular 'tattooees' were forced.
It works both ways...an attendee at a concert is there entirely of his/her own volition but a standee on a bus is - generally speaking - only upright because he/she can't sit down!

[4GS]

You could invent the word, I had a friend once who invenrted the word 'marlingo'.

Of course he's the only person who uses the word, but he invented it all the same

[Fink-Knottle]

One who has been 'retired' against one's will would surely be called a 'bootee' Non?