"Brian K" wrote in message
news:ce2gi.1162$rR.537@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> I've seen these two words used interchangeably. I looked up debarking.
> The only definitions I can find have to do with the removal of bark from a
> tree. There is a third vaguely diabolical meaning, it is to surgically
> remove the vocal chords from a dog. But what about the latter? The only
> definitions I can find for disembark mean 'to leave a ship' or 'to leave a
> vessel'.
>
> It's not really a major issue. However, it could be confusing for someone
> for whom English is a second language happening upon this group. They
> could mistakenly think that a cruise originating from the US winds up with
> passengers being pressed into labor removing bark from trees. Worse yet,
> they might think that the end of a cruise involves the ritual removing of
> a dogs ability to bark.
>
> I did check, there is no word for putting the bark back on a tree, unless
> some German speaking folk want to invent one. :-)
>
> --
> ________
> To email me, Edit "blog" from my email address.
> Brian M. Kochera "Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
> View My Web Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951
In 1955, our family was sent to Europe (Royal Canadian Air Force transfer)
and we travelled on Cunard's "Samaria." My grandparents came to Quebec City
for the sailing, and I can remember my Grandfather being OUTRAGED at the
term "disembark!" He was a professor and the Dean of Humanities at Sir
George Williams University (now Concordia in Montreal) and also an author.
He had come to Canada from England as a young man.
He kept going on about how you can EMbark, and you can DEbark, but you can't
DISEMbark, apparently becaus "dis" cancels "em." (sort of the same theory
that you can't "dispersist, you can only persist or desist)
He'd be even more outraged, were he still alive, to know that I use
"disembark." But I think of him every time I hear the expression
"disembark."
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