Posts tagged as:

Wall Street

SOUSVEILLANCE: ordinary citizens keeping recorded track of officials, instead of the other way around.

December 9, 2011

If you pay attention carefully, you’ll realize that the word sousveillance is a reversal of a more familiar word, surveillance.   Surveillance is a term originating in the French language which uses the prefix, sur, meaning above.   Veillance, the main body of the word means to watch.   Therefore, the meaning of surveillance is to “watch over.”   [...]

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OCCUPY: to dwell in a space

October 28, 2011

The Occupy Wall Street movement is several weeks old now, and it has spread from a New York City beginning to cities and communities all over the country and into foreign countries as well.   The attempt to characterize it has baffled even the most articulate reporters who seek language from past experiences such as the [...]

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OLIGARCHY: government ruled by a small, elite group

December 17, 2010

There’s a strong feeling “out there” that the country is in the hands of a small number of financial gurus who are manipulating the political system.  If so, it is possible that the United States is eligible for the term “oligarchy.“  It’s a word that means that we are being governed by a handful of [...]

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PERQUISITE: a benefit given in addition to a contracted wage

May 22, 2010

We know the word mostly by its shortened, Americanized version, perks. But its origin is the word perquisite, meaning a benefit received above and beyond one’s salary or wage.  In political slang, another word for it is lulu.  That use is based upon a bastardization of the French word lieu, which means “instead of.“  When [...]

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DERIVATIVE: a stock market word that we all understand (right!)

May 1, 2010

I don’t have the foggiest idea what a derivative is.  For months now I have heard the debates in Washington and on Wall Street which have thrown the word around, pretending that everyone understood exactly what the speakers were talking about.  I assumed that the word was so common in educated parlance that I was, [...]

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