Conference thebay::joyoflex

I think it's more that "international" is a sexy word more than "foreign" 
being a bad word.  Kind of like calling a landing strip in the U.S. "Podunk 
International Airport" because an occasional flight from Bermuda lands there.

Of course I wouldn't put it past some New York or Boston station to report the
temperature in foreign cities, like Pittburgh or Santa Fe.

Clay

    While I can't say how old this usage is, I do remember that I was once
    an "international student," and that was some thirty years ago.
    
    The group I'm working in now is truly international, but it's primarily
    (about 95%) based outside the US.  It is marginally better than its
    predecessor (IED under David Stone), which was basically "foreign"
    (European, to be exact) with a token presence in the US.
    
    "Foreign" does sometimes have a somewhat negative connotation, but I
    don't know about politically incorrect, especially as the opposite of
    "domestic."  I don't particularly care to be called a "foreigner,"
    (I prefer "American" or, if you want to make the distinction,
    "naturalized American") but a derivative of "international" can't be
    susbstituted in this context.
    
    --Simon
    

    	I would describe Geneva, Paris, London as international cities, but
    I don't think I would use the same term for Munich or Nice, though that
    is a marginal decision. The only U.S. city I have seen enough of to judge 
    is Boston, and I wouldn't class that as international.
    
    	I have mixed thoughts about "foreign". I am British, but I have
    lived in Valbonne longer than I have lived anywhere else, so I don't
    think of either Britain or France as "foreign". The way the EEC is
    developing I will probably have to consider "foreign" as being
    equivalent to "non-European". My wife's father refers to everything
    from outside the three counties of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset as
    "foreign", and wants to know why "foreigners" (and that includes people
    from London and Manchester) can't speak English.

.0>	Has 'foreign' become a bad word, perhaps politically incorrect?

I believe that CNN (or at least CNN International) has an in-house policy not
to use the word "foreign" as a synonym for "outside the United States of
America".  "International" is the preferred substitute, probably for lack of a
better alternative.

While this makes sense for CNN, there must be contexts in which it is just
silly.

    An international weather report is one with temperatures in Celsius.
    
    A bit more seriously, an international anything is an anything that
    spans two or more countries, while a foreign anything is an anything
    that is somehow distinguished from what is local.  The newest member
    of the U.S. supreme court is on record as having found a foreign
    object on his container of an international beverage.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    The word "overseas" seems to have fallen out of vogue; it may be more
    appropriate than "international" in the contexts under discussion,
    without carrying the baggage that "foreign" does.
    
>    An international weather report is one with temperatures in Celsius.
    
    And a foreign weather report is one with temperatures in Centigrade.
    (Uh-oh!  Rathole alert.)
    
    --Simon
    

    >And a foreign weather report is one with temperatures in Centigrade.
    
    Some foreign weather reports have temperatures in Fahrenheit.
    But most are in Celsius.
    
    And for some reason, domestic weather reports (Japanese) use the word
    ������졼�� (Senchigure-do) instead of ���른���� (Serujiasu).
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    "International airport" defined:

    [ICAO] Any airport designated by the Contracting State in whose
    territory it is situated as an airport of entry and departure for
    international air traffic, where the formalities incident to customs,
    immigration, public health, animal and plant quarantine and similar
    procedures are carried out.

Obviously the word we are looking for to replace these confused words
must be



Extranational


like extraterrestrial for things not of earth 
extranational is for things not of the nation.

Stuart

This discussion of international and domestic airports reminds me of a
totally irrelevant sentence in a Dutch tourist guide which stuck in my memory:

"Lelystad has the largest small airport in the Netherlands."

Jon

>> "Lelystad has the largest small airport in the Netherlands."

	Ah, but there is probably a formal definition of 
	"small airport" that you didn't take into account.

	Jim

    "Small airport" means one that is not "international"	:-)
    
    So largest "small airport" makes perfect sense.

re .8:

There's a sign along some highway in New York state designating the exit
for Sullivan County International Airport.  I'd be surprised if they have
customs facilities.

    Perhaps not, but that airport may support flights to other countries
    (Canada comes to mind), and it could be the Canadian airports that
    have the customs facilities.
    
    					andrew

    "Sullivan County International Airport" is not listed in the FAA's
    Airmans' Information Manual (AIM) as an international airport.