Self-paced
Words like "employee," "payee," and "detainee" support the generalization, crudely stated, that words with the ending -ee designate the person affected in the specified way by an action performed by someone else. ███ ████ ██████████ █████ ██ ██ █ ██████ ███████████████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ██ █████ █████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██ █████████ ████████ █████████████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ████████ ████████ ████ ███████ ████████ ████████ ███████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██ █ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █ █████████ ████████████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ███████ ██████ ██ █████████
Summarize Argument
“Employee” refers to the person who gets employed. “Payee” refers to the person who gets paid. “Detainee” refers to the person who gets detained. Hence, the general rule seems to be that the suffix “-ee” denotes the person on the receiving end of someone else’s action. However, “absentee” refers to the person performing the action (the person who is absent), which appears to contradict this rule.
How to resolve this apparent discrepancy? One can distinguish between two-party transactions (such as getting paid, being employed, or being detained) versus single-party transactions (such as being absent). In two-party transactions, the general rule holds true: “-ee” does indeed refer to the person on the receiving end of the action.
22.
The reasoning in the argument █████ ████ ████████ █████████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ █ ██████████████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████ ███████████
a
honoree
An honoree is someone who is honored by someone else, so the action is done to them. That means "honoree" already fits the original generalization and isn't a counterexample at all.
b
appointee
An appointee is appointed by someone else, so like the -ee words in the generalization, the appointee is the one the action is directed at. It fits the rule instead of challenging it, so it can't play the counterexample role that absentee plays.
c
nominee
A nominee is nominated by someone else. Same problem as (B): the nominee is on the receiving end of the action, so the word supports the generalization.
d
transferee
A transferee is the party something is transferred to, the receiving side of a two-party transfer. That fits the original generalization.
e
escapee
An escapee is the person who does the escaping, not someone an action is performed on. That makes it an apparent counterexample in exactly the way absentee is: it ends in -ee but names the doer. And escaping is a one-party action, not a two-party transaction, so the same refinement that rescued the generalization from absentee rescues it from escapee too.