Revised as of
4 Dec 2023
Gross, just . . . gross! I was researching vacuum sealers for myself and several reviews were going on about evacuation. I do NOT want to think about what they want to evacuate! Now, if they were extracting air from those bags, that’d be another thing.
I can see where the people would use evacuate, as it does mean emptying, and that is what a vacuum sealer does, but the “negative” connotation and the multiple “requirement” drives me to much prefer the extraction of something.
Evacuation is an at of emptying, generally meaning a discharge (from the bowels, usually), clearance, or a type of removal of many somethings or someones (usually in the case of an unsafe situation with many people involved).
NOTE: I received an email from a retired scientist noting that “In the hard sciences (my discipline), what vacuum pumps do is evacuate; they remove air or gas from a vessel, leaving a rarefied atmosphere. People may feel squeamish about this usage, conjuring images of bodily processes, but it is correct. Perhaps, the proper use of “evacuation” is dependent on context.” She’s right. I was letting my personal ick get in the way, so you’ll need to decide for yourself what your preference is.
Extraction means taking something out, removing it, or an ethnic origin. An extraction is getting a single person out with the help of others.
Word Confusions . . .
. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.
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| Evacuation | Extraction |
|---|---|
The Evacuation of Children in Wartime, 2 June 1940, Southend, England, is a lithograph by Ethel Gabain and is under the Public Domain Mark 1.0 license, via Jeni Kirby History and courtesy of the Imperial War Museums. |
Garzweiler Tagebau is Raimond Spekking‘s own work and is under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. — Two excavators are at work performing an excavation. |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Noun
Plural: evacuations |
Noun
Plural: extractions |
| Noun: The removal of persons or things from an endangered area
The act or process of remove (someone) from a place of danger to a safer place, or the condition of being removed
|
Noun: The action of taking out something, especially using effort or force
[With adjective] The ethnic origin of someone’s family A preparation containing the active ingredient of a substance in concentrated form, as from a plant or an organ of an animal etc. |
| Examples: | |
| Noun: There were waves of evacuation during the blitz. There must be a full-scale evacuation of the city center. There were several patients with a feeling of incomplete evacuation. There were those who required an evacuation of retained products. The evacuations of cholera victims are almost colorless. We need better techniques for evacuation of gas combustion fumes. |
Noun: The plans for mineral extraction are complex. Send in the SEAL team for a hostage extraction. “He discovered that it was necessary to perform a very slight operation, merely the extraction of a splinter of wood” (Oppenheim). It has to be a dental extraction. She was a worker of Polish extraction. They [books] do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. She’s created several extractions from the vanilla bean, lavender, and chamomile. |
| Derivatives: | |
| Adjective: evacuative Noun: evacuator, nonevacuation, reevacuation, evacuee Verb: evacuate |
Adjective: extractable, extractive Noun: extract, extractability, extractor, nonextraction, overextraction, preextraction Verb: extract |
| History of the Word: | |
| Late Middle English in the sense clear the contents of from the Latin evacuat- meaning (of the bowels) emptied, from the verb evacuare, from e- (variant of ex- meaning out of) + vacuus (empty). | Late Middle English via the Old French from the late Latin extractio(n-), from the Latin extrahere meaning draw out. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!
Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.
Resources for Evacuation versus Extraction
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Apple Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com: evacuation, extraction
The Free Dictionary: evacuation, extraction
Oppenheim, E. Phillip. The Vanished Messenger. Originally published 1914. 2021. <https://amzn.to/4a2DiiT>. Ebook.
“Evacuation vs Extraction – What’s the difference?.” WikiDiff. n.d. Accessed 29 Nov 2023. <https://wikidiff.com/extraction/evacuation>.
Pinterest Photo Credits
A Foundation Volunteer Performs Dental Work, 26 June 2008, Nha Trang, Vietnam, by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Joshua Valcarcel and is in the public domain, via Picryl and courtesy of the US Navy.
