FW: Enron, the verb (fwd)

[Kathleen E. Miller]

Safire's column covers this topic this coming Sunday. (2/10/02)


At 05:19 PM 2/8/02 +0000, you wrote:
>This was just forwarded to me by a colleague in Texas.
>
>Lynne
>
>
>----- Original Message -----___________
>
>It's now a verb,as in, 'Take the money Enron'
>
>By ANDREW GUY JR.
>
>Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
>
>Enron.
>Enron-ed.
>Enronian.
>Enron-itis.
>Enron-izing.
>
>What was once the seventh-largest company in the United States is now a
>verb.
>And an adjective.
>A double for deception and duplicity.
>
>Need proof? Turn on a television. Pick up a magazine. Wander out in public
>and listen.
>Workers these days don't worry about being fired or laid off, but about
>being "Enron-ed." Politicians wonder about "Enron-izing" the economy.
>Financial experts talk of "Enron-itis" when discussing the shock effect the
>company's demise has had on the market. Comedians joke about the war in
>Afghanistan ending soon because Osama bin Laden lost his shirt on Enron
>stock.
>
>The Enron saga has the elements of a John Grisham novel: a suicide, alleged
>cover-ups and shocking revelations, firings, layoffs and sudden
>resignations. There are whistle-blowers telling all, accountants pleading
>the fifth, and bitter former employees who lost life savings.
>And now, the company is a joke.
>Literally.
>
>"People are definitely using the word differently," said Suzanne Kemmer,
>associate professor of linguistics at Rice University. "A guy I was having
>lunch with recently said, 'Well, I got Enron-ized.' He meant that he was
>laid off, but he meant in general terms that he got screwed."
>
>"There's this strong emotional punch to this word because Enron has become
>this big villain," Kemmer added. "And if it gets picked up by enough people
>who recognize it as a good use for a specific meaning, then it enters our
>everyday language."
>Which is exactly what happened recently when Senate Majority Leader Tom
>Daschle used the company's name when describing his worries about the
>economy.
>
>"I think we are slowly Enronizing the economy," Daschle said. "Enronizing
>the budget."
>Then, financial experts picked up on the trend, turning the company into an
>adjective.
>"We've seen ugly, Enron-ish sights before," Jane Bryant Quinn wrote in
>Newsweek recently, referring to other failed businesses whose employees lost
>out because their retirement funds were heavy on company stock.
>
>Web sites mock the company. The most recent is slate.com, which created "The
>Enron Blame Game. Where it's always somebody else's fault." The game has
>pictures of key players in the Enron scandal. Point to a picture, and a
>printed caption blames someone else.
>
>To determine how a word that once stood for prestige and status morphed into
>a word that now stands for deception, Kemmer said, it's important to
>remember that words are simply reference points used to communicate ideas.
>
>"Words are really neat little cultural information packages," Kemmer said.
>"And words are what we reach for when we try and express a new concept or
>idea. The word `Enron' has now taken on the meaning of being laid off, of
>keeping things from shareholders and employees.
>
>"English does not have this very rigid system where words do not have to
>stay in their rigid forms," Kemmer said. "We have suffixes that allow us to
>change nouns into verbs. We've taken a word associated when the entire
>phenomenon and we've turned it into a verb to suggest an action that was
>associated with that whole phenomena."
>
>It is unclear where the name Enron comes from. Recent news reports have said
>that Lay wanted to call the company Enteron, until he learned that Enteron
>was a biological term for the digestive track.
>
>A glance at the company's Web site didn't confirm the story, either. But it
>did list Stephen Cooper's full title: Interim CEO and Chief Restructuring
>Officer.
>
>Enron: an adjective and a verb.
>
>Talk about synergy.
>
>HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com |
>_______________
>
>
>
>
>
>---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
>Dr M Lynne Murphy
>Lecturer in Linguistics
>Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
>School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
>University of Sussex
>Brighton BN1 9QH
>UK
>
>phone +44-(0)1273-678844
>fax   +44-(0)1273-671320