Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Origins of "finance"

As an engineer, I've always been fascinated as colleagues go off to other jobs, presumably better paying, in the large, nebulous field of "finance." And so yesterday I took a look at my dictionaries to see what the origins of the word might be.

1990 dictionary: from the Old French "finans," or "ransom."

Noah Webster's 1828: from Latin and French words meaning a "fine."

Hmmmm.....I may yet decide to start demanding ransoms or fines for a living, or I may realize that modern word usage isn't completely hostage to etamology. Hopefully the latter, but I figured my "vast readership" might enjoy the irony of one of our most respected (and disrespected) professions having its root in feudal hostage-taking.

2 comments:

Jim Peet said...

The financial services (read Banks) basically pirate your money.

I guess that makes me a pirate!

Bike Bubba said...

Arrrgggh!