Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!torn!sq!msb
From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: "Emigrate to" is defensible (Was Re: English: USA supreme court this fall)
Message-ID: <1996Apr21.070846.17475@sq.com>
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
References: <4j9tmn$uva@news.ccit.arizona.edu> <31706275.49656758@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <4l5flf$1q7@airdmhor.gen.nz> <3178e324.5874723@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 07:08:46 GMT
Lines: 58

Bob Cunningham:
> > > I think that's all right.  One emigrates from a country and
> > > immigrates into a country, but if I am standing in the US
> > > I can say "I am going to emigrate from the United States to New
> > > Zealand", or "I am going to emigrate to New Zealand".  After
> > > I do so, I can stand in New Zealand and say "I immigrated into New
> > > Zealand from the United States" or "I immigrated from the United
> > > States".

Yes, quite right, you can.

> > > It all depends on where you're standing.

Well, not quite.  As Simon Hosie notes:

> > So if you're standing in Europe, for example, watching all this do you
> > just refer to it as migrating/migration?

Most people wouldn't.  They might refer to immigration, or emigration,
or simply to moving: "Bob moved from the US to NZ."

Bob responds to Simon's question:

> I suppose you could, but it doesn't sound quite right to me.
> To me "migrate" applies to people or animals that move regularly
> back and forth.

Well, it does have that meaning, of course.  But the sense that covers
both immigration and emigration also exists -- one sees it used by people
who report on population statistics.  In particular, I'm pretty sure I've
seen "net migration" used to mean the number of immigrants to a country
(or region) minus the number of emigrants from it.

To get back to the main point, Bob continues:

> If I were standing in Europe and felt the need to comment on
> someone's more or less permanent move from one country to another, I
> would probably say either that he emigrated from the source country or
> that he immigrated into the destination country.  The choice would
> depend upon which of the two I wanted to emphasize.

The one point which I think Bob is not quite getting is that it isn't
a matter of which country you're *standing in*, or *wanting to emphasize*,
but rather which country you're *speaking in reference to*.

In other words, if you're talking about the phase of the person's life
that *ended* with the move, then the "old" country is the reference frame
and you speak of the move as an emigration.  Conversely, if you're talking
about the phase that *begins* with the move, the "new" country forms the
reference frame and you should speak of immigration.  In either case, it
is quite natural to use prepositional phrases to refer to either or both
both of the places involved -- and *here* is where issues such as emphasis
come in.
-- 
Mark Brader, msb@sq.com                 "Don't be silly -- send it to Canada"
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto                               -- British postal worker

My text in this article is in the public domain.
