Wednesday, February 25, 2009

A World of Words


One of the things that interests me is how language adjusts and adapts to specific situations. For example whole books have been written about the new words and phrases surrounding the internet. The war in Iraq gave rise to a bunch too, i.e. water boarding, the ‘surge’, aggressive questioning, green zone, etc. Well, the current economic crisis has produced a language of its own.
Consider:

stimulus package
toxic asset
Amer. Recovery and Reinvestment Act
bank stress tests
subprime loans
Fiscal Responsibility Summit
generational theft
reaching across the aisle
entitlement programs
transparency

These are just a handful. I check several business websites everyday for new words and phrases so I’m sure this list will grow. I think my favorite is ‘toxic asset’. Isn’t that an oxymoron (one of my favorite words)? If something is an asset, how can it be toxic? Generational theft is a good one too. In case you don’t know, it’s what the Republicans call the deficit or Obama’s stimulus package-conveniently forgetting they handed us the biggest debt in history! Along those lines, you hear a lot about ‘reaching across the aisle’, meaning bipartisanship (another good one and maybe an oxymoron too). It’s just a matter of time before new terms emerge. Obama has yet to tackle Social Security & Medicare-entitlements. Hey, I’m old. Am I not ‘entitled’? And just wait for the illegal immigration issue to rear its ugly head! I fear for what will come out of that!

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