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Merriam-Webster and Oxford seem to suggest that we can offload things, not people, yet "offloading a passenger" is quite prevalent in Philippine English. Is it a phrase that somebody from the inner circle of English speakers would use?

Thanks a lot!

Here are two examples

ABS-CBN News - Melissa Mendez offloaded after 'punching flight attendants'

Daily Mail - American Airlines makes emergency landing to offload vomiting female passenger in Texas amid fears she has Ebola... despite not having been in Africa

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  • You mean with the following meaning? Regular travelers should not be offloaded by executive officers. .opinyonista.wordpress.com/tag/offloading-of-passengers
    – user66974
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 9:19
  • More like this: Melissa Mendez offloaded after 'punching flight attendants' (ABS-CBN News).
    – Louel
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 9:23
  • While the "off" component is OK, the inner circle would probably find the "load" part somewhat imprecise as its synonyms---cargo, freight, a consignment, a delivery, a shipment, goods, merchandise---all reference non-human “objects.”
    – user98990
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 9:31
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    Disembark is usually used referring to passengers: to remove or unload (cargo or passengers) from a ship, aircraft, or other vehicle.
    – user66974
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 9:36
  • There's evidence of English speakers from the inner circle using this though: Have a look at this title from Mail Online:American Airlines makes emergency landing to offload vomiting female passenger in Texas amid fears she has Ebola... despite not having been in Africa Read more: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2785065/… Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
    – Louel
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 9:41

2 Answers 2

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Offload is used in the cases you mention to distinguish the action taken from the more commonly used disembark.

Disembark is the normal word used for people getting off a conveyance (originally ships, but extended to airplanes, trains, buses etc.) but using disembark is a little bit ambiguous.

Jane Doe was disembarked from the 9am flight this morning

Jane Doe was offloaded from the 9am flight this morning

They both mean the same thing, but as it's normal for people to be disembarked in a non-forceful way, using offloaded for a passenger makes it clearer that the disembarkation was against her will rather than the normal procedure.

OED does mention that off-load has been used for people.

off-load v. orig. S. Africa (after Du[tch] afladen)
trans. To unload. Also transf. and fig., to discard, get rid of, relieve oneself of (a person or thing). Hence off-ˈloading vbl. n. and ppl. a.

1952 C. Day Lewis tr. Virgil's Aeneid v. 113 They enrolled the women for the colony, off-loaded the men who wanted To stay there.

Also compare the definitions from The Free Dictionary and note defn.3 for offload.

Disembark
v. dis·em·barked, dis·em·bark·ing, dis·em·barks
v.intr.
1. To go ashore from a ship.
2. To leave a vehicle or aircraft.
v.tr.
To take ashore from a ship.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/disembark

Offload
v. off·load·ed, off·load·ing, off·loads
v.tr.
1. To unload (a vehicle or container).
2. Computers To transfer (data) to a peripheral device.
3. Informal To get rid of and pass on to another
v.intr.
To unload a vehicle or container.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/offload

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  • I agree, Frank. I like the term. It's forceful. I just find it strange that none of the major dictionary says we can use "offload" this way.
    – Louel
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 9:53
  • @Louel I added a dictionary ref. Offload(3) is probably the definition in use really. I suspect most people who are offloaded are then passed on to another 'authority' to be 'questioned' about why they were offloaded.
    – Frank
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 10:00
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    @Louel Don't forget that dictionaries only record how a word has been used in the past, they don't actually determine how you can use it. People determine how you can use a word just by using it and making it a popular usage. Dictionaries are very often well behind the times, the OED has entries for common words that haven't been updated for a hundred years.- offload isn't one of them - I'll add an OED quote that shows offload has been used for people.
    – Frank
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 10:11
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    @Louel There's over 300,000 words in the OED (and that doesn't include all the variations of words where you can just add some prefix or suffix to make a new word). Noticing that there is a new 'use' for a word is probably the hardest part, then documenting it, then getting into the dictionary (even online) is probably quite an effort. For the most up-to-date dictionaries you need to look at UrbanDictionary or Wiktionary because they are edited by the public and new uses probably appear there first, but because of that you also can't trust them quite as much. (and UD is often rude)
    – Frank
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 11:21
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    I love Urban dictionary! :-)
    – Louel
    Commented Mar 22, 2015 at 11:38
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The OED has some examples of humans being offloaded e.g.:

1968 M. Woodhouse Rock Baby v. 43 A Director who has to offload one of his staff and is embarrassed. and,

2001 FourFourTwo Sept. 104/3 Lazio were prepared to offload Juan Sebastian Veron because they had secured the services of Italian playmaker Stefano Fiore.

But the OED doesn't have any examples of persons being offloaded from public transport vehicles.

I would nonetheless adjudge offload an appropriate idiomatic use, though it does carry a very slight implication of it being done against the passenger's will. (Though I can well imagine that in internal airline jargon they talk about offloading passengers in regular context.) But disembark would be more polite when speaking to the public, and points more to it being at the passenger's request or convenience

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