suffixes - "-ee" and "-er" word endings


There are a few examples of pairs of words ending with -ee/-er like employee and employer or advisee and adviser. What I was curious about is if there was any rule that would describe the relationship of the objects in a pair like this and situations when it's appropriate to create a counterpart for a given word.


I'll give you an example. It's relatively common in the computer programming world to see the word dragee, which describes an object that is being dragged with a mouse. I understand that this is a relatively new word and could not be found in any dictionary (I've tried). Is that acceptable to make up words like this one or is it just bad English?



Answer



Actually dragee is in the dictionary: it's a fruit or nut wrapped in sugar (a peanut M&M is a dragee). But anyway!


I would say that if there are no existing words that fit the purpose (as in the case of a dragged object in computing), and the word 'sounds right', then there is no problem with neologising. After all, if no new words came along the language would never evolve.


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