As you can see from this post, I haven’t found in pretty detailed online dictionaries what you found in “your” dictionaries.

I think at a minimum a displaced person has to cross into another country, and has to have left with little anticipation of being able (even if not necessarily willing) to return. If you don’t have those two things, I think “evacuee” is better; I don’t agree that evacuees have “help” (an evacuation order is not “help) from someone else, as the vast majority of those who left the affected areas did so under their own power.

I think JJ and Oprah and others lodged a correct objection for the wrong reason. The word is incorrect because it’s gramatically incorrect, not because it has racist overtones. But if it makes newscasters and reporters reduce or eliminat their usage of the term, I’ll bite my tongue and take it.

A refugee flees to a refuge. Refuge meaning, per the dictionary: shelter or protection from danger,trouble, etc..
This seems to have fit the people in New Orleans until the term evacuee took over when they were removed from the refuge to which they had fled. Evacuee meaning: A person who is removed to a place of greater safety.
The obvious difference being that a refugee does his own fleeing and an evacuee has help from someone else.

The left-justify was done manually for this post only–I thought I’d fix the place up a bit in case Michelle Malkin comes by. :->

I don’t know whether you’ve read Update 4–I hope to hear from Michelle, as I wrote a detailed e-mail to her noting that objections to the word are not one-sided.

The fact is, you have to twist yourself like a pretzel to try make the word “refugee” fit; it still doesn’t work, and it is NOT consistent with dictionary meaning. You have to go to the third (i.e., least important) meaning of the word, and then limit the word “exile” to INTERNAL exile, when “exile” without the adjective “internal” before it is commonly understood to be external. That just won’t fly.

It appears that all of your hundreds of thousands of uses with “refugee” in singular are in the past year, implying it was seldom used previously. There is the plural “refugess” usage gap in Google, which requires a look-see, but I don’t know how to do it yet, and I’m not going to lose sleep over it, because of the next two paras that follow.

All 3 of Michelle’s previous cites obviously misuse the word to describe people who either were evacuated for a few days and returned (NO WAY someone who is gone only for a few days can be called a refugee), or evacuated and voluntarily decided to not go back to where the hurricane hit, even though there was nothing stopping them from going back. I think you would agree that those uses are improper. If not, if you think that I can evacuate for three days and be a refugee, or I can decide not to go back when I could and still be a refugee, we’ve descended into absurdity, and we might as well throw away the dictionary.

In sum, I have yet to see a pre-Katrina article that “properly” uses the word as you would believe it is “properly” used.

As to the conspiracy-loon reference, I don’t why there’s a group botch going on, but in my opinion, there clearly is, and making an observation that there is a group botch going on does not imply a conspiracy. Perhaps a meme that developed and then got repeated ad nauseam, but not a conspiracy.

Until I see frequent usage of the term that is both prior and “proper” (according to you) I don’t know what to think. What I DO know is that I have followed the news pretty closely for 35 years, and this is the FIRST time I have seen the word used frequently. I haven’t seen anything that would convince me that I’ve somehow managed to miss frequent and proper usage in the past.

More to the point though, you’re asserting some Deep Reason — “trying to make some kind of crude point”. It’s pretty unlikely from what we’ve got here that the usage is all that new, and even if it were, then somehow it’s been spread out to hundreds of thousands of usages in just about a year (Ivan, Charley, and Frances all having been 2004 hurricanes.) It would take a pretty astounding secret cabal to spread this use of the word “refugee” against expected usage, into papers on three continents, in the span of about a year.

Look, I honestly sympathize: as I say, I hate the use of “disrespect” as a transitive verb. But seeing some conspiracy behind it just makes you look like a loon.

Thanks for fixing your comments format, though: it’s ever so much easier to read this way.

Well, Michelle and my good bud Colorado Charlie, that’s because that’s what the darn word’s primary meaning has been for all these years (despite the limited references to Andrew and Charley cited by Michelle, all of which I believe misuse the word more obviously than it is being misused with Katrina). Crossing country borders has always been integral to the common use of the word “refugees.”

The fact that you can get 300,000+ Googles (regular searches, I presume) doesn’t change that, because of this (also Google regular general searches):

- Hurricane refugee in the past year–299,000
- Hurricane refugee in the past six months–300,000
- Hurricane refugee in the past three months–300,000
- Hurricane refugee–298,000 “anytime”

That would indicate few if any previous uses (actually, negative, but that’s obviously absurd).

Now let’s go plural (all Google regular searches):
- Hurricane refugees–1,950,000 “anytime”
- Hurricane refugees–1,410,000 in past year
- Hurricane refugees–1,410,000 in past 6 months
- Hurricane refugees–1,410,000 in past 3 months

Still studying….. go to Comment 11 for more.

“Hurricane refugees boosted Broward’s population 29 percent over the past decade to more than 1.6 million people. In sheer numbers, Broward grew more in the 1990s than any other Florida county.” “Hurricane Andrew left legacy of higher housing costs” (Sun-sentinel.com)

That’s one example; the word’s been used for Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Ivan as well, as Michelle Malkin discovered.

In fact, Google produces about 247,000 uses of the phrase.

But what the hell, I don’t like it when someone uses “disrespect” as a transitive verb.

I believe the burden of proof is on those who think the term “refugee” has been used in US disasters in the past. I don’t think so, and until I see otherwise, I won’t cope, I will strenuously object.

As to why they’re being characterized as refugees, I’d be real interested what a Lexis/Nexis search would say on previous disasters — I’m pretty certain you’re mistaken, but I can’t easily check. But we’ve got people who look like refugees, act like refugees, and are fleeing their home in search of refuge.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, man.

As to the definition, you ignored the next sentence in wiki: “It is common to distinguish between internal exile, i.e., forced resettlement within the country of residence, and external exile, deportation outside the country of residence.” It is fair to infer from wiki, though there is room for debate, that those in internal exile are NOT refugees.

The Princeton definition has been asked and answered, and is irrelevant. The Oxford definition contains “country,” and is also irrelevant. That leaves Future Harvest, which also refers ONLY to “country,” and gets thrown out.

You still haven’t made the sale. See Update 2 for why this is important.

While the desire to do a pilpul or exegesis in order to preserve your honor is an understandable one, a little further examination yields:

Exile:

To be in exile is to be away from one’s home (i.e. city, state or country) while either being explicitly refused permission to return or being threatened by prison or death upon return.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile

voluntarily absent from home or country

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

refugee:

an exile who flees for safety

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

one who flees in search of refuge, as in times of war, political oppression, environmental destruction, or religious persecution.

http://www.futureharvest.org/about/glossary.shtml

a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/refugee?view=uk

… and most simply:

one that flees;

I’m not sure why this little fidget seems so important to you, but it’s pretty clear that the people who use “refugee” in this context aren’t unjustified in ignoring you.