As a child, I was taught a rhyme to protect me against name calling. I was to defend myself saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." When I first learned this, I believed it. I thought I could stand tall and protect myself by saying that the words aimed at me did not mean a thing.

The trouble is that it's a lie. Name calling does hurt our self-esteem and shift our place in community. Name calling can bend our friendships to the point of breaking trust. Names stick to us, making us outcasts in the community. We start to feel that we don't belong.

Eventually I learned that names matter. I learned other defences when people named me in ways that pushed me aside. I learned to challenge names given me, and I learned to choose my words carefully. Also, I started to listen to the effect that the words we use for people have on our behaviour.

One example of particular concern in our world right now is the way we talk about people around the world who are on the move, leaving their homes, fleeing violence and poverty, looking for safety and home. The different ways we refer to these people affect the way we interact with them.

Sometimes people on the move are called "migrants." The caravan of people heading to the United States from Central America last fall were called "migrants." In Europe, people refer to the "migrant problem."

While "migration" does describe people on the move, it implies a parallel to the history of immigration to this land. Calling them "migrants" implies that people are choosing to leave a place in order to seek a better life elsewhere. For a couple centuries, "immigrants" left Europe, South Asia, East Asia, to make a home in the Americas. Migrants changed the shape of the communities on this land, building cities and farms, industry and new nations. This displaced the people who were here, but those who were immigrants built themselves a home. When people on the move today are called "migrants," the implication is that this is the same kind of movement, a choice to immigrate.

There are two problems with this. First, it ignores the pressures in the land they are leaving, and I will come back to this point. Second, it implies that the new homeland has a choice about whether to make room for them or not. People in the destination country look around to see if there is space for them, work and living places for them. If there is lots of work, then immigrants will help. If people are feeling stressed about their employment situation, they will be threatened by "migrants" who may take their work. Some who do not see the need for more people in their community argued "the migrants should choose to stay home."

Sometimes people on the move are called "refugees." The people fleeing Myanmar into Bangladesh are consistently referred to as "refugees." People leaving war-torn Syria are housed in "refuge camps." The word "refugee" highlights the idea that they are people escaping danger and seeking safe refuge. This word also places responsibility on the receiving country: the people are forced to move or at least leaving an unsafe situation. The responsibility to provide safe haven is claimed with this name.

When the World Council of Churches declared a year of solidarity, a year of study and action, the name chosen was "uprooted peoples." The United Nations often uses the term "displaced people." These names highlight the fact that the movement is not a choice. Something is done to pull them up from the community where they belong. Their movement is caused by other people or by natural disasters. "Displaced" reminds us that there isn't a safe place to send people back to. "Uprooted" reminds us that people would rather belong. They'd rather stay home. As people in between, they feel really insecure and vulnerable.

Whether we call these people migrants or refugees or displaced people, we are talking about the same people--folks leaving Venezuela or Yemen. But how we choose to speak says different things about our assumptions. And we imply different strategies for reacting to them.

Names are not neutral. They highlight and hide. Names are seldom generated by the people to whom they are attached. They can be gentle words of welcome or stones designed to chase them away.

Cathy Hird lives on the shore of Georgian Bay.