This is a guest post by Tony Hearn. If you want to write for Daily Writing Tips check the guidelines here.

Time was when the suffix -ee lived a quiet and well-ordered life in its own restricted little corner. Your bank slips would ask for the name of the payee, perhaps. Lawyers would talk about vendee and grantee. It was clear enough. The entity with the -ee was the recipient. All neat and tidy. But no more.

I don’t know what it’s been fed, but -ee is now mutant and rampaging.

The suffix is derived through French -é(e) ultimately from the Latin suffix -a-tus. For those who care, it’s the past participle of -a- stem verbs, signifying something having been done. As such it is ‘passive’, not ‘active’. Hence the agent is the ‘payer’ and the recipient the ‘payee’.

In its passive sense it’s been around for a long while, especially in the Law. Vendee and grantee, for example, refer to the indirect object of an action (the person to whom something is done). Payee refers to a direct object (the recipient of an action).

Interviewee as someone being interviewed dates from 1880-85. Trainee is unexceptionable enough.
Taxee, ‘a person who is taxed’ has made its ugly appearance in the Urban Dictionary, though it remains unknown to my published dictionaries.

More such misfits exist. Somewhere along the line someone who should have known better morphed the suffix -ee into an all-purpose active termination. Absentee seems to be an early example (1537!), but here perhaps the idea is that a person has absented himself.

No such excuse attaches to the modern plague. Now we have ‘attendees’ who should surely be ‘attenders’. This gains 456,000 hits on a Google search! Apparently the rot set in early: the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary gives 1937 as the earliest citation. And what about ’standee’: 147,000 hits? Have our readers got any more horrors to add to this rogues’ gallery?

I am left wondering whether my bank clerk knows the difference any longer between ‘payer’ and payee’. It could make a lot of difference!

Tony Hearn has had a lifetime’s love affair with language and with English in particular. As a Primary School teacher in England he has promoted a love of language and the importance of a mastery of its use. He enjoys the byways of websites like The Phrase Finder.

As long ago as the 4th century B.C.E., a student of religion and myth named Euhemerus theorized that the gods and their stories had their origins in actual historical events. His name has given us the term euhemerism [yū-hē'mə-rĭz'əm]:

interpretation of myths as traditional accounts of historical persons and events –OED

Much later, an Icelandic student of the Norse myths, Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241), suggested that the gods began as human war leaders. He speculated that cults grew up around the burial sites of kings and renowned warriors. The living visited the sites called upon the departed for help in battle. Eventually the dead heroes were remembered as supernatural beings with the power to bestow victory in war.

Related words are:

euhemerist: noun, one who follows the method of Euhemerus

euhemeristic: adjective, ) of persons: Inclined to euhemerism; (b) of things: Of the nature of or resembling euhemerism

euhemerize: verb, To subject to euhemeristic interpretation; To follow the method of Euhemerus.

A reader wonders:

Can the word ‘prepone’ be used as an antonym of ‘postpone’? I’ve often heard people using this term but never been convinced about the usage. If this term is not correct or non-existent, what is the correct antonym of ‘postpone’ if any at all?

The word prepone to mean “to move forward in time,” is a word coined by English speakers in India. Example: The examination set for March 12 has been preponed to February 16.

Although a recent coinage–the OED dates its appearance from the 1970s–the word is constructed along the same lines as postpone,

postpone: from Latin postponere, “put after.” post=”after” and ponere=“to put” or “to place.”

The English prefix pre-, meaning “before,” comes from Latin prae, meaning “before.” If postponere, why not praeponere?

Some existing antonyms for postpone are “bring forward, move up, advance.” Ex. The ten o’clock meeting has been moved forward to nine.

The word prepone sounds too strange and unlovely to my ear for me to want to use it. However, if enough speakers decide that the word fills a need, it will catch on globally.

The words “flammable” and “inflammable” mean the same thing: “easily set on fire”. Why is this?

In English, the in- prefix is often used to reverse the meaning of an adjective. Thus inactive is the opposite of active and inelegant is the opposite of elegant. So why isn’t inflammable the opposite of flammable?

The reason is that the in of inflammable is not the prefix meaning “not”. Inflammable derives from the Latin in meaning into and flamma, “a flame”. Flammable derives simply from flamma. Inflammable is thus very close to the word enflame, which has the same origin.

In practice, it can be confusing having two words that sound as if they could be opposites but which actually mean the same thing. It could even be dangerous, if “inflammable” were taken to mean “not flammable”. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary recognizes this and recommends using “flammable” at all times :

The words flammable and inflammable have the same meaning. It is, however, safer to use flammable to avoid ambiguity, as the in- prefix of inflammable can give the impression that the word means ‘non-flammable’.”

As this quotation makes clear, the opposite of flammable is not inflammable but “non-flammable” or simply “not flammable”.

DISCLAIMER: This is a random list of frequently heard terms that relate to criminal activities. It is NOT comprehensive. It is NOT to be construed as legal advice. If you need reliable legal information, talk to a lawyer who practices law where you reside.

Broadly speaking, U.S. law recognizes two types of crime: misdemeanor and felony.

Not every state agrees as to the classification of misdemeanors and felonies. For example, in some states domestic abuse is a misdemeanor; in others it’s a felony. Nonetheless federal guidelines determine the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor in terms of punishment: a crime punished by imprisonment of a year or less is a “misdemeanor.”

1. arson: From Latin ardere, “to burn” (pp. arsus). Intentionally damaging a building with fire or explosives.

2. burglary: The crime of breaking into a house with intent to commit theft. Until some time ago this charge occurred only if the felon broke into the house at night.

3. crime: from Latin crimen, “charge, indictment, offense.” An act punishable by law, as being forbidden by statute or injurious to the public welfare. Legally, a crime consists of two parts: actus rea, the criminal action, and mens rea, the criminal intention.

4. domestic abuse: any act or threatened act against a person with whom an intimate relationship exists or existed, for example, spouse, boy/girlfriend, child.

5. embezzlement: from Anglo-Fr. embesiler “to steal, cause to disappear.” A person who appropriates to personal use money entrusted for another purpose commits embezzlement.

6. felony: as a term in common law from Old French felonie, “wickedness, evil, treachery, perfidy, crime, cruelty, sin.” Noun: felon; adjective: felonious.

7. forgery: The creation of a false written document or alteration of a genuine one, with the intent to defraud.

8. human trafficking: the crime of displacing people with a view to exploiting them.

9. kidnapping: a compound of kid (slang for “child” and nap, a variant of nab, “to snatch away.” The word first referred to the practice of stealing children or others in order to provide servants and workers for the American colonies. In current usage, the crime of kidnapping is the abduction of a person of any age with the intention of holding the person for ransom or for some other purpose.

10. larceny: from Latin latrocinium, “robbery.” The felonious taking and carrying away of the personal goods of another with intent to convert them to the taker’s use. The difference between grand larceny and petit larceny is one of the value (as defined by statute) of the stolen property.

11. manslaughter: from Old English mann, “person”+slaeht, “act of killing.” Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malicious intent. Voluntary manslaughter is committed in the heat of passion, or while committing another felony. Involuntary manslaughter is the result of accident, such as vehicular manslaughter.

12. moral turpitude: turpitude is from a Latin word meaning “vile, ugly, base, shameful.” Defining the term in a legal sense is a slippery undertaking. Crimes of moral turpitude include: murder, voluntary manslaughter, rape, domestic violence, prostitution, embezzlement, arson, bribery, blackmal, perjury, and theft.

13. murder: from Old English morðor. “secret killing of a person.” Murder is intentionally causing the death of another, either through premediation focused on a particular individual, or by extreme indifference to human life. First degree murder is defined by federal and state laws, which vary.

14. prostitution: from Latin prostituere, “to expose to prostitutuion, to expose publicly.” Commission of a sex act for money or some other thing of value.

15. receiving: accepting property for use, resale, or disposal that is thought or known by the receiver to have been stolen.

16. robbery: from Old French rober, from a Germanic source meaning “to rob, spoil, plunder.” Robbery is theft committed openly and with force.

17. stalking: With the sense “pursue stealthily, the verb stalk comes from Old English -stealcian, as in bestealcian “to steal along.” An early meaning of stalker was “one who prowls for the purposes of theft.” In today’s usage, stalking is a crime that involves the intentional and repeated following and harrassing of another person to the extent that the targeted person fears bodily harm.

18. theft: depriving another of property. Theft implies subterfuge, while robbery is the open taking of property. Burglary is committed when the thief breaks into a building:

19. treason: AngloNorman treson from a Latin word meaning “a handing over, surrender,” and influenced by Old French trair “betray.” Treason is the crime of siding with the enemy, either to fight against one’s own country, or to offer “aid and comfort” to the enemy.

20. trespass: from Old French trespasser, “to pass beyond or across.” Trespass is entering another’s property without permission. If it is with an illegal intent, it’s a crime. Illegal dumping is a form of trespass.