In this mini episode, you will learn the strange noun ending “-ee.”
Episode 476 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you the strange noun ending “-ee.” Send your questions about English and your comments and suggestions to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hello, everyone! This is Camilia, from China. You are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 476 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
In this episode, I want to talk about a very strange and interesting suffix. This suffix is a noun ending. You will see this on some nouns.
The suffix is -ee. That’s how we spell it, e-e. And we pronounce it as “ee.”
Have you ever seen a noun that ends with -ee? A lot of the nouns that end in this -ee suffix have a kind of technical or formal or official meaning or feeling. A lot of these words are not very conversational. You will probably not hear people using a lot of these words in conversation, but I think it’s a good idea to be familiar with this suffix because that will help you understand some technical or official words that you might not be familiar with.
What does this -ee suffix mean? How do we use it? Where do we see it?
Before I try to answer that, let me give you an example. I think this will make it easier for us to talk about. Look at the word employer.
I think you have seen this word before. Employer, e-m-p-l-o-y-e-r. Employer. What is an employer? An employer is a person who employs someone, a person who gives someone a job.
You have probably also seen a word that is very similar that has this strange -ee ending. The word I'm thinking of is employee. Employee, e-m-p-l-o-y-e-e.
What is an employee? Well, if you look at the parts that make up this word, an employee is somebody who receives a job, somebody who gets a job from someone else, someone who gets a job from an employer.
We can see that these words are a kind of set. They exist together. Employer, employee. Employer, employee. The person who does something or gives something and the person who experiences some action or receives something. The employer gives the job. The employee receives the job.
Another pair of words that work the same way that you might have seen is interviewer and interviewee. Interviewer, interviewee. The interviewer is a person who interviews somebody, and the interviewee is the person who is interviewed, the person who receives the questions in an interview.
I have a long list of words that work this way. Some of them seem very strange to me, but I have seen or heard them before. Some of them seem a little bit more common. For instance, the same way we have somebody who is a payer in some transaction, we also have a payee.
The payer is the person who pays or gives the money, and the payee is the person who receives the money.
We also have tutors and tutees. That kind of sounds like a funny word, doesn’t it? Tutee. Well, the tutor gives a lesson, and the tutee receives a lesson.
We also have advisor and advisee. The advisor gives advice or gives help, and the advisee receives the advice or receives help. Just like tutors and tutees, you might find advisors and advisees in some kind of a school setting.
It is true that not all of these -ee words exist in this kind of pair. They don’t all exist in a pair like employer/ employee, but most of these -ee nouns do have that same kind of meaning. They have the meaning of someone who receives something or somebody who experiences something. Somebody who is the object of some kind of action.
As I said, some of these words are not common, and they are not conversational, but if you understand this strange suffix -ee, that could help you understand new words that you encounter.
For example, it’s very possible that you have never seen this word before: appointee. Appointee. A-p-p-o-i-n-t-e-e. Appointee. Even if you have never seen this word before, now that you have an understanding of this -ee suffix, you might be able to guess what the word appointee means. An appointee is somebody who receives an appointment. An appointee is somebody who has been appointed to some job or position. Somebody appoints somebody, and the person who is appointed is the appointee. That person has received something. That person has received a job or a position or a title because that person has been appointed to some job.
In the same way that you can understand or try to understand this new word, appointee, you will also be able to understand or try to understand other strange and technical or official-looking words that have this -ee ending.
That is the -ee suffix, pronounced “ee,” and I think this is an interesting and useful thing for you to know.
Outro
This is the end of episode 476 of Everybody ESL. Remember: If you have any questions about English, or if you have comments for me, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Camilia recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with a new episode. And until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. I’ll see you soon. Goodbye!