In The Blogs
- ‹ previous
- 1898 of 2826
- next ›
Yet Another Reason to Hate Bankers
YET ANOTHER REASON TO HATE BANKERS....Headline from the Wall Street Journal tonight:
This is the second time I've seen this in the past couple of days, and I don't remember seeing it before. Is the plural of treasury really treasurys? Shouldn't it be treasuries?
Via Google, I see that both forms are fairly common. But why? Where did treasurys burble up from? Is Wall Street, not content merely to ruin our economy, now taking a crack at ruining the English language too?
Bonds, Treasury bonds
Things that are considered proper nouns by the Editors in Charge are given an "s" at the end and not pluralized.
Take the Kennedys, for instance. They're not pluralized into "Kennedies." Hence, "Treasurys," not treasuries.
I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think that's the mentality behind it.
Like Keith G said. The WSJ stylebook has had this rule since at least 1993, which is when I read it.
Treasury bonds = treasuries
A treasury (meaning a place where you keep money) and another treasury = treasuries
It's a way of telling the words apart.
And of course it's "Kennedys." "Kennedies" would be horrible.
All right, I meant treasury bonds = treasurys
Additionally, it seems to me that this form helps to distinguish the use of the word 'treasury' as a short for treasury bond from its conventional use, assuming context would not be enough for some.
But I really don't care. I stopped reading economic news as a New Year's resolution.
My OED is silent on this matter. (Now isn't this a helpful post?)
steveb,
My OED is silent on all matters. But it's full of all these funny black marks, none of which bear on the matter at hand.
Actually, the one that keeps getting to me is "lede," not universally favored but big with bloggers such as Josh Marshall. It's not as if "lead" were 12 letters and difficult to spell. Of if the lead paragraph weren't so etymologically close to the idea of taking the lead.
Kevin, leave it alone.
There are all sorts of funny conventions and anomalies in the financial markets (right down to pretending that the year is only 360 days long in some contexts).
They (the participants in the market) don't worry about it because it's understood from context.
They have something more important to worry about - money - and English spelling pedantry is not high on anyone's agenda.
It shouldn't be on yours either.
I'm pretty sure treasurys follows the convention set by usurys.
Mostly I wanted to say that while we should all feel free to hate bankers as much as we want I know for a fact that there are at least a couple 'good' bankers out there. By 'good' I mean the real deal conservative type that you'd want holding you money.
Thank God.
Not all of them drank the "ponzi-schemes for all" kool-aid.
Thank God.
(Cue the lounsbury to pick a nit now)
Re "taking a crack at ruining the English language..."
It's quite irritating when they do that, isn't it? Reminds me of the time someone, I can't quite recall who, threw "begging the question" overboard.
John H... Lede, Dec, Hed, Graf, TK (for to come) and half a dozen other misspellings are old journalism spelling. From my days in newspapers beginning in college it was presented to me always as done that way so a proofreader would easily spot it and no that some piece was missing. That may be apocryphal -- but so is much about the editorial business.
Bankers -- they're the new Lawyers!
1. The OED specifically gives "treasuries" as the plural of "treasury bill." in definition 3C:
pl. Treasury bills.
1922 Daily Tel. 12 June 2/1 New secondhand Treasuries were dealt in at 2 per cent. 1930 Daily Express 6 Oct. 14/4 The banks bought short-dated Treasuries at 2 per cent.
2. The AP Style manual makes no recommendation (except to use a dictionary), but the Stylebook itself uses "treasuries" in its own text:
"Because Treasuries carry the full backing of the government..."
3. Chicago Manual of Style has nothing that I could find.
4. Merriam Webster gives "treasuries."
5. The pluralization of last names has been standard for at least 150 years and has little to do with this discussion.
6. The WSJ's use, withal, is essentially determinative for American newspaper usage of financial terms. It seems less likely that book publishers will go for it until it is sanctified in at least one dictionary.
I say T-Bills if pressed to explain why I don't have any.
sh
I don't think Bankers are responsible for the usage, I have never seen it. It would appear to be a WSJ thing.
It's the same quirk that allows the Wall Street Journal to eschew the comma when (if?) the DJIA exceeds 9999.
Technically, you could argue that you are dealing with two different nouns, one of which happens to be derived from the other. Thus, you would be correct to think that the plural of the original noun "treasury" is "treasuries", but wrong to confuse if with the derived noun "Treasury (bond)" which pluralizes differently. I don't recommend the argument, since the dictionaries all agree as to the correct plural as established by usage, but it would be possible to deploy it in a credible way.
I'm sorry, but doing away with the antediluvian pluralization of nouns ending in -y or -f won't ruin the English language any more than ditching the hyphens in to-day and to-morrow. Not all change leads to ruin.
When did it become proper to use the word "but" to start a sentence? But it did, and we all lived. English is a remarkably adaptable language, which is its real strength and the reason it is the international language of science and mathematics.
When did it become proper to use the word "but" to start a sentence?
At the end of the day.
It always has been correct. Look at William Strunk's own usage in 1918 Elements of Style, and read Fowler from the same era.
Used at the beginning, "but" is a transitional adverb, like "nevertheless."