refugee, IDP, evacuee

[Jonathan Lighter]

I hadn't heard of any "refugee" objecting to the word before the televised statement of the African American members of Congress went out last week.

If the Rev. Jackson said that "refugee" implies/ means "criminal," the objections become even more ludicrous. I hadn't heard that, either.

 JL

sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: sagehen
Subject: Re: refugee, IDP, evacuee
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This looks like becoming a performance where you need a program to keep the
players straight.

1.Someone refers to people stranded by the storm or its aftermath and taken
to the Superdome as "refugees."
2.Someone among those thus referred to objects to being called a "refugee,"
on account of connotations the word has acquired from past events.
3.Someone else objects to the objection with the opinion that "refugee" is
the perfectly correct term for the person thus referred to.
4.Someone else starts to object to the objections being batted
around.............

I'M CONFUSED.

AM

~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:>


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