Get outta here!

June 3rd, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

I’ve heard this one before: You can evacuate a building, but you can’t evacuate a person. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Does anyone know where this thing came from?

I have checked all my usual printed sources on this, plus some online dictionaries, and no one makes any such distinctions.

The verb “evacuate” has several meanings, but the one we’re talking about here is “to remove (inhabitants, etc.) from (a place or area), as for protective purposes.”

My interpretation is, you could say, “The town’s inhabitants were evacuated as the river continued to rise.” Such people are “evacuees.”

However, you also could say, “The town was evacuated as the river continued to rise.” It is understood that the townsfolk are being moved, not the town.

According to “The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories,” the word comes from the Latin verb “evacuare,” for “empty (the bowels).” And “evacuate” still can mean that, too.

I’ll try to keep my next offering free of references to body wastes.

Entry Filed under: definitions, strict usage