Thursday, July 17, 2008

Definition of “Schumer”

My friend Jim McTague over at Barron’s sent me an amusing e-mail earlier.

Apparently Jim has coined a new word he’d like to see added to the lexicon. The word? Schumer. It’s a verb with the definition, “to cause a decline in confidence at a financial institution by a public statement.” As in, “XYZ Bank today was schumered by the Washington Post.”

Jim notes that his last attempt to coin a word — indigencia — failed to catch on. That’s too bad. It’s actually a pretty handy word. Indigencia is a noun that refers to “the class that both promotes and benefits from welfare subsidies.”

Very clever, Jim.