refugee, IDP, evacuee

[Jonathan Lighter]

Safire needs to remember that "victim" is bad too.

JL


Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Barrett
Subject: Re: refugee, IDP, evacuee
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Seattle Times published an article that discusses not applying refugee
to people caught in the wake of Katrina.

In the article is this:
-----
The 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention describes a refugee as someone who has fled
across an international border to escape violence or persecution. But the
Webster's New World Dictionary defines it more broadly as "a person who
flees from home or country to seek refuge elsewhere, as in a time of war or
of political or religious persecution."
-----

and this:

-----
Columnist William Safire, who writes the weekly "On Language" column for The
New York Times Magazine, said he did not see how the term "refugee" had any
racial implications.

"A refugee can be a person of any race at all," he said. "A refugee is a
person who seeks refuge."

He first suggested using the term "hurricane refugees." After thinking it
over, though, he said he would probably simply use "flood victims," to avoid
any political connotations that the word "refugee" may have taken on in the
current debate.
-----

The article should be available for the rest of the day without registration
at

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/displ
ay?slug=katword07&date=20050907&query=refugee+seattle+times

Benjamin Barrett
Baking the World a Better Place
www.hiroki.us

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society
> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Benjamin Zimmer
>
> Now Bush has joined the "refugee"-avoiders...
>
> -----
> http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/12572851.htm


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