A new lexicon for the credit crunch generation...
Published: September 25 2008 03:00 | Last updated: September 25 2008 03:00
From Mr Aidan Kennedy.
Sir, I enjoyed Brian Groom’s Notebook item “Xmas comes early” (Ft.com, September 23). Grim financial news would surely have seemed more palatable if it had been delivered with the natural exuberance of the late Liverpool footballer Emlyn Hughes – for example, “The FTSE done fell 100 points early doors” or “Andy Hornby is literally as sick as a parrot”.
Rather than borrowing the syntax of football, it might be time for the credit crunch generation to develop its own lexicon and I propose the following to set the ball rolling (so to speak):
To AIG disgracefully: to casually take out an enormous loan.
To applegarth: to let ambition get the better of you.
To fuld: to prevaricate fatally.
To greenspan: to conveniently forget your errors.
To paulson: to screw your former competitor.
To thain: to get out while the going’s good.
To bernanke: to suffer from recurring nausea. For example, “My stomach’s a bit bernanke this morning.”
Finally, a proverb: “Beware of Greeks bearing stearns” which means you may be forced to gazump yourself.
Knowing your love of lists, you might want to build on the above.
Aidan Kennedy,
London SW11, UK
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
