Nuovo appuntamento con “Peter’s Pills“, la rubrica online di Legal English by Federnotizie (la rivista online di Federnotai), in collaborazione con Confprofessioni e Beprof. La 25esima video-lezione “Doctrine” è disponibile sul sito www.federnotizie.it, sui canali social e sul sito di Confprofessioni e sulla app Beprof, scaricabile da App Store e Google Play.
LESSON N. 25: CLICCA SOTTO PER IL VIDEO
Transcript:
Hello!
In Legal English you will come across many nouns that have the same roots but are two opposites. The first one will end with the suffix “-er” or “-or”, while the second will end with the suffix “-ee”..
They are easy to understand, but sometimes we need to pay attention. Basically the “-er” or “-or” nouns represent the person who gives or does something, while the “-ee” noun is the the receiver of what is done or given. For example “employer and employee”: where employer is the person who gives employment to someone, while the employee is the person who accepts employment from the employer.
Let’s look at some others:
| er/-or | -ee |
| Assurer/Assuror (person that insures) | Assuree (the insured party) |
| Donor (person who donates to another) | Donee (person who receives the donation) |
| Franchiser/Franchisor (person that gives the license to open a franchise) | Franchisee (person who opens an activity under franchise) |
| Leasor (person who rents property to another) | Leasee/Lessee (person who uses the property rented from another) |
| Offerer (person who makes an offer) | Offeree (person to whom the offer is made) |
| Payer (person who pays) | Payee (person who is paid) |
| Pledger (person who gives objects or documents as security for money borrowed) | Pledgee (person who receives objects or documents as security for money lent) |
| Transferor (person who transfers property to another) | Transferee (person to whom property is transfered) |
Note in the table that some nouns have two different spellings in English and both are acceptable for you to use.
Please be very careful with “mortgager and mortgagee”. Which one is the bank and which one is the person asking for money?
A mortgager is the owner of the property. As the person with rights over the property, the mortgager mortgages his or her property, offering or giving it as security to the bank. The bank accepts or receives the property as security for the loan and is therefore the mortgagee.
Thank you very much and see you next time for more Peter’s Pills to improve your Legal English!
Read more about dual nouns here: “Dual Nouns” (.PDF).