Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Language Glorification

"We are investors not traders" said my boss in my previous company, when someone enquired whether we can do intra-day trading. While, he said that he was in awe of 'investing' as investors are supposed to be more patient and are bestowed upon with foresightedness. The recent market turmoil and the clueless experts has actually shown that the experts are often clueless when they are needed the most! So, why do we say "I 'invest' in stock market", why there is so much stress on the word 'investing'. I think it is just because it sounds better than merely saying "I buy shares", "I trade", by saying investing, we are using language to glorify our ordinary actions..

Similarly, in India, when someone has just got engaged, people ask with a sheepish smile "aur, when are you marrying". In simpler words, they want to say "When are you having sex", this is assuming that there is high probability of finding an unmarried virgin in India than outside as pre-marital sex is considered to be a sin by religious and conservative people.

Another instance of language glorification, few years back I went to post-office. In a queue, a young woman was standing and chatting with an old man. The man asked "what do you do". She replied "I am a MBA professional". I think the word "professional" does not mean anything beyond having a job in a decent private company and its a trivial matter whether you copy paste the data there.