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

[Jonathan Lighter]

If "migrate" is currently restricted to data applications, I prophesy that
it will soon be generalized.

JL

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "migrate", v.tr., a sort-of untracked sense
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> To me an account is a form of data, and has been so since the development
> of ledger books.
>
> As for divestee, your account was divested, ie, sold, by your original
> bank, the divester. By my thinking, your account was a divestee.
>
> DanG
>
>
> On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > 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=
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org