Forecast 2010 popular new words,give diligencing its due in the lexicon of 2010
Forecast 2010 popular new words,give diligencing its due in the lexicon of 2010 Forecast 2010 popular new words,hot events in 2009World Search Keywords,2009 hot events, hot events in 2009, 2010, the annual popular vocabulary GIVE DILIGENCING ITS DUE IN THE LEXICON OF 2010By Michael Skapinker 2009-12-25 The New Oxford American Dictionary has announced its 2009 word of the year. It is “unfriend”, as in “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight”. Unfriend has “currency and potential longevity”, says Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer for Oxford's US dictionary programme. It is true, she says, that most words with the prefix “un-” are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant) but there are some “un-” verbs, such as unpack and uncap. “Unfriend has real lex-appeal,” she says. “Unfriend” will irritate those who oppose the nasty habit of turning nouns into verbs. But nouns have been turning into verbs for ages. In his book The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker estimates that a fifth of English verbs started as nouns, including “to progress”, “to contact” and “to host”. Also, many supposedly new words are not new at all. “Unfriend” has an ancient past, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1659, Thomas Fuller wrote in The Appeal of Injured Innocence: “I hope, Sir, that we are not mutually Unfriended by this Difference which hath happened betwixt us.” I am interested in the words that did not make word of the year. They included “paywall” (admitting only paying subscribers to part of a website) and “birther” (someone who believes Barack Obama was not born in the US). These came from either the internet or US politics. It is odd that there were few from finance, given the banking convulsions of the past year. But words are lagging indicators. Facebook had been around a while before “unfriend” surfaced. So perhaps 2010 will produce a financial word of the year. What might it be? I have spotted two possibilities. The first came from Paul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England. Asked by the House of Commons Treasury committee in January how he would ensure effective communication between the Treasury, the Financial Services Authority and the Bank, Mr Tucker said they needed to tolerate a degree of overlap in their functions. He said: “That can be uncomfortable for bureaucrats . . . But handling overlap in a grown-up way is far better than living with underlap.” Underlap is a real word. It means a piece of material extending under another piece. Mr Tucker did not mean this, however. He meant a gap – an absence of overlap or underlap. So why not say gap? Presumably because overlap and “underlap” have a pleasing symmetry. “Underlap” started appearing in newspapers – in a speech by Lord Turner, FSA chairman, and in Sir David Walker's review of banking governance. But “underlap” was already in the air, and in areas unrelated to banking. The Desert Sun of Palm Springs, California reported that officials were examining the siting of fire stations to prevent overlap or “underlap”. The Toronto Star said a vulnerable woman had been neglected because “there is a kind of underlap – areas where the services do not mesh”. “Underlap” is not centuries old but it does go back 24 years. In 1985, the Financial Times reported someone talking about “underlap”. Who? The Bank of England. Why? It was worried about gaps in regulation. Coining a word does not mean you have dealt with the problem. Another candidate for word of 2010 also appeared in a Commons hearing. Asked about bank finances, Mridul Hegde, the Treasury's director of financial services, said: “We are in an extensive process of diligencing the assets.” Diligencing. Do you like it? It is surely more elegant than the clunky “doing due diligence”, a corruption of “exercising due diligence”. “Diligencing” has already made a few appearances. In November last year, the FT reported Tony Lomas of PwC, administrators to Lehman Brothers in Europe, saying: “We're still diligencing.” The first use I can find is in 2005 in the New York Observer, where lawyer Barry Ostrager complimented Chambers, the lawyers guide. &ld |
Forecast 2010 popular new words,give diligencing its due in the lexicon of 2010