I'm not a grammar Nazi, but I thought people who might have to use the word 'evacuate' might like to know the controversy behind the term. As the fictional editor from TV show The Wire informs his writer: "A building can be evacuated. To evacuate people is to give them enemas." The clip is available on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5d82ndui_s

This would give a particularly scatological meaning to the following sentence from a previous post in the thread:

Quote:
it teaches that after a tsunami, you must evacuate yourself


On the other hand, this seems a somewhat dated distinction in usage. According to the editor-at-large at Merriam-Webster: "This was indeed a usage controversy until about WWII, by which time the 'remove (people)' sense had taken firm hold. According the MWDEU: 'The respectability of this sense is no longer subject to question.'" See the following article:

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/01/the_wire_copyediting_scandal_d.html

Here endeth the lesson.