Language Traduces Thought, Part 2 (Part 1 was on 18 April 2017)

The Prime Minister's claim to be truthful caused derision among the studio audience at the first TV debate in the Run-up to the General Election of 12 December. Truth is said to be the first casualty of war, which is said to be politics by other means. And words themselves conceal the truth in war. Thucydides wrote in "The Peloponnesian War" in the 5th c. BC that cowardice is called tactical retreat, and so on. Thucydides also wrote that war in one place causes people to move somewhere else, which causes another war. Migrants are people who emigrate from one country to live in another. Only EU citizens are entitled to migrate to the UK without a visa. But because EU citizens come here probably not intending to cut connections with their own country it is wrong to call them migrants. The same is true, of course, of people who live in the UK on a Spouse Visa. They retain their own nationality, and can live in their own country if they feel so inclined, so they are foreigners not migrants. While calling people who enter the UK illegally "migrants" gives them a legitimacy they do not yet have. They, too, should more properly be called foreigners, or illegal aliens or possibly potential migrants since that is what they may hope to achieve - or, more likely, acquire the right to permanent residence (peculiarly called "Indefinite Leave to Remain") while keeping their original nationality so they can return "home" whenever they want.