海角大神

When the black swans chase away the bulls

A look at the vocabulary of financial turmoil.

A silver lining in the market turmoil of recent weeks 鈥� let鈥檚 hope it settles down by the time you see this, dear reader 鈥� is that such upheavals let word lovers review some of the colorful vocabulary used in financial markets. (And no, I don鈥檛 mean just things like 鈥淍#$%&!鈥�)

In a recent post, Kerry Maxwell, at the Macmillan website, led with unicorn.听

For centuries, a unicorn was an imaginary single-horned horse. Its native habitat was the . There was a semantic neatness to unicorn that pleased lexicographers: one word, one clear meaning. Unicorns did not actually exist, but at least everyone knew what they were.

But that鈥檚 changed. Unicorn is now 鈥渢he accepted description for a newly started company, usually no more than ten years old, which has come to achieve a valuation of $1 billion ... or more,鈥� says Ms. Maxwell.

So now imaginary unicorns share dictionary space with financial ones. Venture capitalist gets credit for this new sense of the word.

And since a billion dollars isn鈥檛 what it used to be, we鈥檙e now hearing about decacorns, imaginary horses with 10 horns, to refer to start-ups worth $10 billion or more.

I feel like drawing a line here. A 10-horned horse is imaginary even within the realm of fantasy.听

But what about other animals? Bulls conventionally are the mascot for market optimists and bears for pessimists. A recent cover of featured a 鈥済roup photo鈥� of bears of various colors and sizes. It didn鈥檛 take much explaining.

Then there鈥檚 the deer market. The metaphor there is the proverbial 鈥渄eer caught in the headlights鈥� of a car, immobilized with fear. explains that deer market investors typically 鈥渄o not initiate much buying, selling or trading of stocks and bonds.鈥�

And the black swan: Some define it first as, well, a swan with black feathers. In the financial sense, it鈥檚 鈥渁n extremely rare and unexpected event that has significant consequences,鈥� as Word Spy puts it.听

This usage is credited to Nassim Nicholas Taleb鈥檚 2001 book, 鈥淔ooled by Randomness.鈥� offers a vivid example, from 2011, rooted in events now in our rearview mirror: 鈥淏lack swans are, of course, those highly improbable but painfully consequential events that strike from the blue 鈥� or from the streets of Cairo, or from an offshore oil rig, or from a poorly designed car part.鈥�

There鈥檚 an older sense of black swan, though. The Oxford English Dictionary has an example it traces to 1398: 鈥渘o man findi镁 [findeth] a blak swan.鈥�

In 14th-century England, a black swan was as rare as a unicorn; that is, nonexistent. The black swan that is an actual bird is found in Australia, though it has been introduced elsewhere. Now we have 鈥渞eal鈥� unicorns, creating wealth, and 鈥渞eal鈥� black swans, wreaking havoc. Let鈥檚 hope we have enough of the former so that the latter don鈥檛 chase all the bulls away.