'Deplane'

We all get frustrated at times by the terms that are used throughout our daily conversations with others. We are humans and we communicate…. a lot. Furthermore we are also creatures of habit. As the saying goes we tend to stick with the same word choice when communicating.

5 years ago when I arrived in the US the term ‘deplane’ was used when the flight attended announced that the passengers were now allowed to exit the aircraft. It was strange to me as the term ‘disembark’ was always used with every other airline I had traveled with over the years; and I travel a lot. Fast forward 5 years I hear that word used so many times I tend to now just let it go and not think about it. But it does bug me!

The human race tend to add new words to the English language on a yearly basis. The word ‘deplane’ can be found as an slang word via urban dictionaries when searching the Internet. I’ll admit that I did find it in the Miriam-Webster dictionary. Apparently the word was first used in 1923!! What I cannot find is the term ‘debus’, ‘decar’ or ‘detrain’. Why not? What happens when astronauts land back on Earth, do they ‘despaceshuttle’. Okay, I’m going a little over the top with this.

I really did search to find out the origin without much luck. If anyone can share the origin and how/why it came about I would be very interested.