That question—which I hope doesn’t cause the Curious Capitalist to lose its PG rating—ran as a headline in Asia this past week. TIME Senior Editor Jim Erickson mentioned that to me over email after he saw the story I wrote about the usefulness—and danger—of economic metaphors, such as the ubiquitous “green shoots.” (Not an entirely new topic here at the CC.) Here’s a snapshot of what I wrote:
We talk of the housing “bubble,” of stocks “skyrocketing” and “cratering,” of the credit “crunch,” of the possibility of “zombie” banks. These are not rigorous terms. And yet through them we view the world — often in imprecise, flawed ways that don’t even necessarily carry the same imprecise, flawed meanings from person to person. From there we make some pretty hard-core decisions. If we hadn’t so consistently been talking about the potential for financial “collapse” or economic “free fall” late last year, maybe money wouldn’t have flowed as quickly to the nation’s banks. [Read the rest of the article here.]
One of the classic examples of how language can shape our opinions on economic matters is the Republican rebranding of the “estate tax” as the “death tax.” Who’s ever going to be for a tax on death? The genesis of the switch, as recounted in this Washington Post article, was some polling done in 1995 by Frank Luntz. Upon seeing the results, the pollster “advised the new GOP majority to never use the terms ‘inheritance’ or ‘estate tax’ again.” A real marketing coup, that.
Language: it’s a powerful thing.
Barbara!