I also wondered about "grudgee" but then realised that would be the person on the other end of the grudge. The person holding the grudge would be the "grudger" or "grudgor" surely!
But as you say, none of those words exist anyway.
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