Did You Stay at a Place or Just Visit?

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, Martha and Grant. My name is Caleb. I’m calling from Monterey, California.

My wife and I met about a decade ago in college, and pretty early on I found out that she was half-Egyptian.

And I was excited to tell her, oh, you know what, when I was about 10 or 11, I actually lived in Egypt for a couple of months.

I didn’t know at the time, but apparently she sort of internally rolled her eyes a little bit about that.

And it was, you know, time went on. We dated, got engaged, married, and several years into marriage,

She kind of came out and said, you know what? I love you, but you’ve been telling people you lived in Egypt, and I just don’t think you did.

I think what you did, it basically amounts to an extended visit, and it’s time to put my foot down.

And I was kind of shocked about that and amused, but I disagreed.

And so my, you know, we asked friends and colleagues and family over the years sort of what they thought with no real clear outcome.

So, you know, it’s time finally to take it to the authorities and get some advice here.

Oh, wow.

So the question is, you were in Egypt for a couple months when you were 11.

Yeah, two and a half months.

Two and a half months.

And you say you lived there.

That’s your verb.

And she says you stayed there.

That’s her verb.

Visit or stay somewhere like that.

Yeah.

Okay.

We both have our points.

Yeah, Caleb, we’d like to hear your points.

My stance is, you know, we had our own apartment, we received mail, we had several overnight trips within Egypt and kind of came back home afterward, celebrated major holidays, you know, attended a church, had a membership at a sports club, all this sort of daily minutia that I feel like adds up to living there.

Okay.

So the question is, what does it mean to live someplace?

When can you say that you’ve lived there?

This is complicated by the fact that stay has a long history in English of being used to mean to reside or to dwell.

And so this is all complicated by words having more than one meaning.

And if we focus too much on a single meaning for a word, we often lose sight of the larger understanding.

And I think that’s what’s happening here with your wife and you.

She has a much more philosophical take on it.

What’s her take?

Yeah, sure.

So her perspective is it has to have a pretty specific intent, which apparently my family and I did not meet, which is kind of that while it wasn’t a vacation to live someplace, you have to sort of start a new chapter in your life, move the center of your life to a new place, you know, try to find your community and the sense of belonging.

And that really wasn’t what we were doing there.

Did you keep a residence back in your home country, which I assume was in the United States?

Yeah. Yeah. So we were, you know, I believe I don’t know exactly was a child, but on a tourist visa.

So we weren’t, you know, permanent residents or anything. But I still feel like it adds up.

This is so interesting to me, Caleb, because I’m thinking about I visited Alaska not too long ago.

And people said you didn’t live in Alaska until you’d gone through all four seasons.

You know, so if I had stayed there for six months, they would have said, no, you don’t live here.

And I’m also thinking about this was when you were 10 and 11.

It’s making me realize that when I was two and three years old, our family lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, because my father was on sabbatical.

And I never think of myself as somebody who lived in Massachusetts.

I don’t.

He was on sabbatical years later when I was 14 in Florida, and then I felt like I lived in Florida.

But I’m wondering, is age an element there, or is it the temporary nature of your stay there?

If you’re deployed in the military for a year to Germany, would you say you lived in Germany?

I think I would.

Or if you’re a student someplace abroad, you know.

Yeah, right, right.

So two months in Egypt when you’re 10?

I don’t know.

What do you think, Grant?

I think that both parties here have a really good case.

I think the confusion can be solved where Caleb can say that he was in Egypt and use a different verb.

Not stayed because he doesn’t agree with that and not lived because his wife doesn’t agree with that.

Yeah, maybe it’s just you spent some time in.

So when you’re having a conversation and you’re talking about how much you love Egyptian food or whatever it is,

And you say, oh, yeah, I spent some time in Egypt when I was 11, and that’s when I learned to love whatever.

And maybe that gets the point across without getting anybody’s feathers ruffled.

Caleb, I have a feeling that a lot of our listeners are going to want to weigh in on this

And weigh in on the amount of time maybe it takes to stay someplace

Or other factors that might affect whether you say I lived in that place

Or I stayed there.

Well, thank you very much.

We’re both fans of the show, so it was a pleasure.

All right. Take care. Bye-bye.

Thanks, Caleb.

Yeah, send us your thoughts about Stay vs. Live.

The email address is words@waywordradio.org.

Tell us about your time in other countries and the language you learned there

And whether or not you technically stayed or technically lived.