If we don't call it "toxic"...

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So according to this press release from the Treasury, the billions of dollars in bad mortgage loans that banks have on their books now (which have contributed largely to the current economic downturn) will no longer be referred to as "toxic" assets. Instead, the government refers to them as "legacy" assets--a term that is obviously meant to make them more appealing to potential investors (as if the government providing essentially "free" capital to investors isn't enough--but I'll refrain from getting on my soapbox here).


Looking through the OED's entry for "legacy" encourages some interesting connections with this word and the bad debt it's being used to describe:
  • "Legacy" is sometimes used to refer to the tangible (like money or property) or the intangible things (like a name or reputation) given in a will, bequeathed to a descendant. That sound nice, right? I think this sense of the word as a positive connotation for most of us (who wouldn't want to inherit lots of money from a rich old aunt and become independently wealthy, right?). But if you look at this "legacy" in a political sense, you might take a cynical perspective and consider the legacy of billions (if not trillions) of dollars in debt. What will our future descendants have to do to cover these debts that our society is accumulating right now?
  • "Legacy" is also used to refer to software or hardware "which, although outdated or limiting, is an integral part of a computer system and difficult to replace." These bad mortgages are certainly still an integral part of our economic system and are not going to be easy to pawn off on other investors (thus the role of the government in fronting a lot of the money for investors to entice them to take these bad assets out of banks' hands).
It's also interesting to note that the OED doesn't even list "legacy" with an adjective form, such as it's used here by the Treasury. Once again, behold the beauty of the English language with its propensity for verbs and nouns that can easily shift identities!

I'd love to hear some other examples of people or institutions who rename something unpleasant in order to make it more appealing.

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1 comments:

Sara said...

I rename things all the time. It's a necessary tool for motherhood, especially when describing a child's behavior. You know. Tantrums aren't tantrums. They are uninhibited passions on display. Repeated misbehavior is actually just a child who is very focused on his goal. Screaming--"OOHh! I can just see those healthy lungs working great!"
But, maybe that's not what you meant?
Sorry if I've dummified your blog. You can delete my comment if it's unprofessional. And Yes, dummified is a word!!

July 4, 2009 at 8:23 PM

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