Hi,
Could anyone please give me any word describing such a person? Does 'grudgie' exist in BrE?!![]()
I'm not a teacher yet, but I am studying a Bachelor of Education with an English Literature major at Charles Sturt University, in NSW, Australia.
Consider resentful and embittered.
What about 'grumpy'?
Remember - correct capitalisation, punctuation and spacing make posts much easier to read.
Please be aware that I'm neither a native English speaker nor (at present) a teacher.
Aha. An employee is someone who is employed, a payee is someone who is paid: no problem -something's done to him. That fits in with the French 'past participle passive', ending -é[e] (for -er verbs).
However certain French verbs, such as s'échapper, take être rather than avoir, and the participle agrees with the subject. An escapee has escaped; a refugee has fled.... The word 'refugee' came over with the Huguenots; I'm not sure about 'escapee; (or maybe it's the other way round - I forget)
These two (and maybe others, hence the "...") muddied the waters, so that you can't depend on an '-ee' being on the receiving end of something. Other '-ee' words further muddy the waters, as the '-ee' is not attached to a verb: a bargee is on the end of something - a bargepole- but not on the receiving end. Today, much to the distaste of some of us, people use words like retiree and attendee, and coin similar words will nilly.
But as you say, this probably isn't worth worrying about.
b
Last edited by BobK; 07-Nov-2012 at 20:48. Reason: Fix format