Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Feb 21, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Feb 21, 2002 |
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Opinion
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Accountancy Columns - Account Speak Old wine
A FRIEND e-mails to inform me about the winning entries for Washington Post's `Style Invitational, 2001'. The contest invites readers to "take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter and supply a new definition". Accordingly, `intaxication' is euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realise it was your money to start with. `Sarchasm' is the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. `Glibido' is all talk and no action and `coiterie' is a very very close-knit group. A geocities page screams of "words that should exist in the dictionary". Such as: `Cashtration', the act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period; `kinstipation', the painful inability to move relatives who come to visit; `lullabuoy', an idea that keeps floating into your head and prevents you from drifting off to sleep; `elecelleration', the mistaken notion that the more you press an elevator button the faster it will arrive; `phonesia', the affliction of dialling a phone number and forgetting whom you were calling just as they answer; and the related `telecrastination', the act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up, even when you're only six inches away. Being an accountant, I wonder whether one could inject new life in a dull profession, by renovating the old words. For instance, `PAL' could mean the routine pea-and-yells while `bees' refer to balances. `Hug-counts' are books held close to the chest and `nutes' are the plain notes to accounts, with no put-ons. On the contrary, `suspensions' could be those skilfully drafted notes that take the shock away; and `schedrools' refer to the nicely presented supports to financial statements. There would always be some in the practice who qualify to be called `haughtitors' while there are those who are happy and long winding as `oh, detours'. You could have a different opinion about all this. Or, `dopinion', something which can achieve a reality-disconnect.
D. Murali
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