"migrate", v.tr., a sort-of untracked sense

[Jonathan Lighter]

I've seen this usage as well.  In effect, it merely means to 'move or
reassign (from one category, list, department, organization, etc., to
another).'

But "move" sounds so pushy, "migrate" so ultra-precise.

JL

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      "migrate", v.tr., a sort-of untracked sense
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I just received a notice that my e-mail account is about to be deleted, =
> and while I first took this to be one of the many many spam warnings I =
> regularly receive along these lines, I realized this was an actual one, =
> but no need to panic, because my account, as they reminded me, "has been =
> migrated" to a different sort of account as part of a mass migration =
> event of this kind that we're undergoing.  I checked the OED entry for =
> transitive "migrate", underlying such a plural, and the closest was=20
>
>  7. Computing.
>  a. trans. To transfer (data, programs, etc.) from one environment to =
> another.
>
> Neither the definition nor the cites include the possibility of an =
> account being migrated, although it might be taken to fall under this =
> definition.  Becoming a migrant in this way reminded me of an event =
> several years ago when a bank merger (Fleet, formerly BankBoston, being =
> swallowed up by Bank of America) resulted in a randomly selected subset =
> of account holders being notified that our accounts were being =
> "divested" and would be transferred to another, unrelated bank.  =
> (Apparently B of A couldn't take in all of the suddenly unbanked =
> multitudes because this would have violated one of the few anti-monopoly =
> laws affecting the banking industry.)  We received notices in which we =
> were referred to as "divestees", a word for which there is no entry in =
> the OED and which doesn't follow by principles of semi-productive =
> morphology from any of the listed meanings of transitive "divest"--e.g.
> 5.  Econ. To sell off (a subsidiary company); to dispose of, cease to =
> hold (an investment).
>
> --which would seem to predict that the bank rather than the individual =
> account holder would be the divestee in this case.=20
>
> LH =20=
>
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