As the financial crisis gains momentum and uncertainty reigns over the markets, we tend to look at stock market behavior as a barometer of the economic environment. After yet another stock roller-coaster day, stockholders are more uncertain about tomorrow. The origin of the word stockholder has an interesting history which dates back many centuries.
The earliest system of recording bilateral exchange was a tally stick system. The technique of using a tally stick to keep track of financial transactions arose in medieval Europe in the 12th century, when King Henry I introduced tally sticks with notches of different sizes to mark denominations. The stick (usually from hazel) was split lengthwise, so that both parties had a complete record of the transaction. Later, to prevent any counterfeit, the two parts of the stick were made different in size: a lending party held the longer part of the stick, called a stock, and the receiving party held a foil, the shorter part.
So, the stockholder was the one who held a wooden stock. The king kept one part of the stick for his records, and the other part was released into the markets to circulate as money. The king also accepted tally sticks for tax payments, which insured their credibility as money. The system was very successful and lasted in England until the early 18th century. In some small European countries, it survived until the early 20th century.
If we were back in King Henry’s times, we might be throwing sticks in order to inject liquidity into the economy. In any case, sitting on our assets would be quite uncomfortable.
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There is no doubt that when the candidates get together tonight for the third and final debate, they will focus on the state of the economy.
Like many words frequently used in matters of state and government, economy has its origins in Ancient Greece.
Eco is a derivation of the Greek oikos, meaning an extended family unit that consists of the house, members of the family, slaves, farmland, and all property.
The oikos was run by the oldest male of the family, whose role it was to tend to agriculture and to ensure that all components of the family unit were running smoothly. Thus, eco now designates a broad, self-sustained unit, as in the terms ecology and ecosystem.
The suffix –nomy is derived from the Greek nomos, meaning management, law, or principle. Thus oikonomos, the original form of economics, meant the management of the hearth and home.
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Now that the U.S. has entered into the final weeks of a long presidential campaign, let’s take a closer look at the language we use to describe the process.
The etymology of the word campaign reflects a military history dating back to 17th-century Europe. The Latin campus — adopted in the French as campagne and campgna in Italian — means, simply, a field. Centuries ago, armies battled in open fields, launching military “campaigns” against one another. The political sense of campaigning by traveling and delivering speeches to garner support originates in the 18th-century and extends from the same principle of going into the country.
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Who is a barbarian? The word barbarian was used originally by the Greeks to refer to any non-Greek: Egyptians, Persians, Indians, Celts, Germans, Phoenicians, Etruscans, Macedonians, Carthaginians, Vikings, Goths – all of these became known as barbarians. The ancient Greek word βάρβαρος (bárbaros) meant “babbler.” To the Greek ear, someone who did not speak the Greek language babbled, producing the onomatopoeic sound “bar bar bar” which became bárbaros, and later barbaria in Latin.
Several other forms exist in Indo-European languages, such as the Sanskrit word barbara, meaning “stammering.” The root word bárbaros has even found its way into the realm of geography as the Barbary Coast, home to the infamous Barbary pirates.
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The word quarantine — used in modern English to designate a period of time when a group of people or materials is isolated from its surroundings — has several cultural and semantic stories ascribed to it.
With the French quarantaine and the Italian quarantena we are plunged into nautical history. Beginning in the mid 17th-century, a quarantine was a period of time in which a ship suspected of carrying foreign disease or plague was kept in isolation. The Latin root quadraginta means “forty” — the approximate number of days that ships stood at European ports before allowed entry.
Other notable 40 day periods, or quarantines, include: Jesus Christ is said to have fasted in the desert for 40 days, and in the 16th century, widows were expected to stay home for 40 days after the death of their husbands.
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