Afghanistan Repatriation Memorial

W Brewer brewerwa at GMAIL.COM
Mon Nov 12 11:10:15 UTC 2012


S<puellaest>: <<<Afghanistan Repatriation Memorial  honouring Canadian
soldiers that died in Afghanistan.  this use of "repatriation" is somewhat
odd.>>>
WB<puellanonest>: The collocation <Afghanistan Repatriation Memorial>
collides interpretation-wise with something like <Armenian Holocaust
Memorial>: i.e. A.R.M. sounds like "A memorial to the survivors (who have
since died) of a forced repatriation back to Afghanistan and a certain
death".  So I also think this a new twist to the A.H.M. syntagm.
 DG: <<<I am trying to figure out what is so odd about using the word
"repatriation"
to refer to bringing back the bodies of soldiers who died on foreign soil.
What word would you use?
WB: For me, only the living can be repatriated. (Now that I checked, I see
remains of war dead are being _repatriated_ on the internet, although
_brought home_ is common and what I would say.)

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