As Paul Karl Feyerabend once said: The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths. Or as I put it more succinctly for my high school students: Sometimes. As in, every contract has consideration … sometimes. In the legal lexicon, we distinguish between someone who is giving something and someone who is getting something with the suffixes “or” and “ee”. We use this all the time in the law:
grantor – grantee
promisor – promisee
mortgagor – mortgagee
indemnitor – indemnitee
donor – donee
And on and on. But there’s one conspicuous exception to these traditional pairs. Someone who is owed a debt is called a “creditor”, and someone who owes a debt is called a “debtor”. No “creditee”. No “debtee”. I’ve searched and searched, and I can’t locate any basis for this discrepancy. If you have any actual intel or even rampant speculation, I’d love to hear it.