A reader called writer David Menconi to object to a word use in Menconi's Arts & Living profile of singer Aline Simone.
Simone was born in the Ukraine in 1975, to dire circumstances because her parents were on the outs with the ruling Soviet regime. Her family immigrated to America when she was an infant.
The caller, who left no name, contended that the verb should have been "emigrated." Menconi had originally written "emigrated," but in proofing the page, I changed the verb to "immigrated," relying on the Associated Press Stylebook and other usage authorities such as Theodore Bernstein, Bryan Garner and Diana Hacker.
Here is the AP entry:
emigrate, immigrate: One who leaves a country emigrates from it. One who comes into a country immigrates. The same principle holds for emigrant and immigrant.
It seemed to me that because the sentence was about where the family went, not where the family left, we should use "immigrate." Garner points out that "immigrate" means to migrate into or enter (a country) and "emigrate" means to migrate away from or exit (a country). That distinction is at the heart of a mnemonic I have heard: emigrate means exit; immigrate means enter. Bernstein wrote that "emigrate" needs "from." Hacker makes the same distinction.
Comments
emigrate/immigrate
Thu, 08/07/2008 - 07:56 — Pam_Nelson (author)This is a comment I received in e-mail about emigrate/immigrate: That's the way I've always understood it, too. It would be interesting to know if the caller is a native North Carolinian, and perhaps caught by the Great Elizabethan Vowel Shift that leads to saying "pin" for "pen" and "Chapel Heel" for "Chapel Hill." (I'm not a native, but I've lived here a long time and I love it, so that's not meant as a slur!)
I object to David Menconi
Wed, 08/06/2008 - 14:08 — Anonymous (not verified)I object to David Menconi not being a very good writer, as evidence by that clumsy first sentence above.