“Brain drain” is a phrase that first appeared in the 1950s, when London’s Royal Society expressed concern about the number of British scientists, engineers, and physicians being lured to the United States. Its concern was not misplaced: The Second World War had essentially bankrupted Britain, and in the wake of postwar privations and the nationalization of health care, the number of British professionals crossing the Atlantic to affluent America was substantial.

Since then, the phrase has been applied retroactively: The arrival of German Jewish refugees—novelists, scientists, scholars, composers—during the Third Reich was a “brain drain” for Germany but an unexpected bonus for us. So imagine The Scrapbook’s surprise, if you will, when the New York Times revived the term in a November 16 editorial (“A Cuban Brain Drain, Courtesy of the U.S.”).