I recall that one of my fellow PhD students was doing research on the fact that many words (often of Germanic origin) that begin with s + certain consonants have negative connotations – e.g. slimy, smarmy, smear, sly, sleazy.

Similarly, it strikes me that “crufty” and “kludge” are very like existing words that convey the idea of turgidity – e.g. clogged, clump, clod, clunky, crumpled, crusty. I think all those consonant clusters have a fittingly congested feel.

Clare

p.s. Ever counted the number of consonant clusters in the phrase “consonant cluster”?

Brad – it pained me to discover this morning that the policing of hedge funds is now known as “micro prudential regulation”. It seems that the complexity of the regulations is being reflected in the language used to describe them. None of it seems to bear any relationship to the real world.

Adding laws on top of laws reminds me of things I saw in my programming days. I think the technical term is ‘cruft’. Crufty code appears to work at first. Later, it falls over and takes your faith in the program and programmer with it. Let’s hope our legal eagles have the sense to do as you suggest Brad. Repeal and replace.

Until, that is, the next generation discovers the joys of “financial innovation” (aka thinking you’ve found a way to recycle debt into nothingness). Then, once again Bob will be killed off and usurped by his more glamorous cousin, called [insert random list of impressive, businessy sounding buzzwords here].