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<p>Expats has always meant people who leave rich countries (at least initially) temporarily.</p>
<p>Not that Wikipedia is right on everything, but here is what they say:
[Expatriate</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriate]Expatriate”>Expatriate - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>leanid- Everything I read online uses the term Expat.</p>
<p>My daughter’s stint will most likely be for a year and possibly open ended.</p>
<p>oldfort,</p>
<p>I think your firm is wrong. By the very fact that you are working for an American company, drawing pay and benefits from it, are not renouncing your allegiance to America and intend to return there when you time is up, you cannot call yourself an expatriate, I don’t care what sort of modern-day spin you put on it. And, no, I for one find no “romance” in it at all.</p>
<p>Sorry leanid, you are absolutely wrong about this one. The whole point of the term ‘expatriate’ is that you keep allegiance to your home country. If you sign up for your new country, then you’re not an expat but an immigrant.</p>
<p>There are both lots of American expats (temporarily) and immigrants (permanently) in London.</p>
<p>leanid - you know so much about it, because…</p>
<p>FWIW - I’ve worked for 3 companies who referenced folks on assignments out of their home country as expats.</p>
<p>PS - and I very jealous about the opportunity to live in London for awhile!</p>
<p>"…then you’re not an expat but an immigrant."</p>
<p>Actually, you are both, although ‘expatriate’ sounds more glamorous than ‘immigrant’; probably the reason it was adopted by the Lost Generation in the 1920’s, since ‘immigrants’ had such an unfortunate image, what with their hordes overrunning the country (America) then.</p>
<p>leanid - why do you think your postings are helpful to OP? Do we even really care what they are called?</p>
<p>Perhaps you do care. The term ‘expatriate’ carries a certain catchet that is appealing to some, whether they can rightfully claim to be one or not.</p>
<p>No, that´s the word what most normal people use. If you think there is more to the word, so be it. Again, OP didn´t start this thread to discuss whether someone should use the word expatriate vs immigrant. If you have personal experience on this issue, feel free to give some advice, but it appears you are arguing about something that really doesn´t matter. </p>
<p>We try to use words which accurately describe something. If I told people that I was an expat, it would clearly tell people that I am here temporary, and in the near future I´ll get transferred back home or to another place. If I told people that I was an immigrant, it would imply that I am making this place as my new home, and I do not see myself moving back home in the near future. Whether YOU think it is more glamous to be an expat, that´s your personal opinion. Some of us do it just because our job requires it.</p>
<p>I think it is a great opportunity for OP´s daughter, but she´ll need to make sure the finance makes sense.</p>
<p>It’s interesting. I was about to write a post saying that leanid was confusing “expatriate” with “exile”. In my mind, “expatriate” simply does not have the connotation he or she was ascribing to it, at least not in general current usage.</p>
<p>But then I looked in the crappy 25-year-old Webster’s College Edition dictionary I have in my office, and it definitely comes down on leanid’s side, in fact using “exile” as a perfect synonym. So it may be that the value-neutral version of “expatriate” is a recent shift in usage.</p>
<p>In my business, we send people across the globe to work at various local offices. As far as I could remember, we have always used the word “expat.” My brother also worked in HKG for 15 years as an expat. He would say, “we have a large expat community.” I don´t think it is that recent.</p>
<p>The oxford english dictionary has uses of ‘expatriate’ going back to the 1810s:</p>
<p>1818 Q. Rev. XIX. 55 Patriots and expatriates are alike the children of circumstances.
1871 B. Taylor tr. Goethe Faust II. iii. 209 But a God took hold of her, The Expatriate.
1902 Daily Chron. 26 Feb. 3/5 The Expatriates is a novel by Miss Lilian Bell.‥ Its principal characters are rich Americans and titled Parisians, and the action takes place largely in Paris.</p>
<p>What is your point, keepit?</p>
<p>The point is that the earliest of those uses doesn’t exactly seem loaded with ‘glamour’.</p>
<p>No, it isn’t, and I used “glamour” to illustrate the difference in perception between expatriate and immigrant. Where the former carries more glamour than the latter – not necessarily that it is glamourous in and of itself. The Lost Generation of writers may have been disillusioned after World War I, but they were not totally without ego. Which label do you suppose they preferred?</p>
<p>The first OED usage seems consistent with leanid’s view (in that it treats patriots and expatriates as opposites in some respects). The last clearly isn’t, and conforms to what I think of as the correct meaning, i.e., any person living in a country other than the one of which he or she is a citizen, whether temporarily or semi-permanently. I have no idea why the OED bothers to give us the middle example, which tells you nothing about how the word is used.</p>
<p>I want to make clear that I think my 1982 Webster’s New World College Dictionary (2d Ed.) is wrong. But I can’t argue that it’s not respectable at all.</p>
<p>Growing up in East Africa, the ex-pat community were all the old Brits who stayed on. They’d lived in Africa most of their lives, but they still had British passports. (They may well have had dual citizenship though and some may really have emigrated officially - I wasn’t checking passports, but that’s what I remember.) But as we all know word meanings change and if oldfort’s company uses it the way they do, and other companies do as well, that may eventually become the new correct meaning. All my dictionaries also say that it means immigrant or exile and that you’ve lost your original citizenship. Weird.</p>
<p>We were almost sent overseas for a few years when DH worked for a big Fortune 100. They always referred to the employees/families in thise assignments as ex-pats. I guess its a colloquialism. But we understand the phrqsiology.</p>
<p>If she’s heading to the UK she’ll need to open up a UK bank account so she can get a debit card and possibly credit card with the chip and pin system. Otherwise paying for things is going to be a nightmare. If her firm is a larger one, they’ll probably have some sort of arrangement with one of the banks to provide this service to its “expat” or “local” workers transferring from abroad.</p>
<p>As an aside, just to add some fun to the expat/local discussion, I am originally from the US. I moved to the UK with my UK husband. There I worked for a US firm, hired directly in the UK as a local. I then moved to a European firm where I was transferred as an expat back to the US. Yep I was indeed for a period of time an expat in my own country !! LoL</p>