There’s nothing I like better than a new word and one popped up just recently - “nudnik”.
Apparently, “analytic experts are creating tools to identify permanently grumpy types who leave bad reviews so companies can decline their business”. Well, this is the City, so don’t expect the explanation to make sense. Nudnik derives from Yiddish for a boring nag, but I don’t see why the world of commerce should hog this fine word. Also in the world of global finance, many central banks are preparing to unleash a new round of quantitative easing to nudge the world back to economic prosperity. Well, it’s been an unalloyed success so far, hasn’t it?
Schroders, a British multinational asset management company, has gone a step further and offers quantamental investing. I am grateful to the Wall Street Journal for the following definition: “This stock-picking approach relies on a combination of quantitative and fundamental investing techniques.” Clear as mud. After that lot, I reckon stock market players should resort to the tried and tested - close your eyes and have a stab at the share prices page with a pen.
I have just about got used to “double down”. Never actually saw what was wrong with “double up”, but there you go. I imagine people who use it also deploy “ahead of” and “precarity”. I’m sure you know the type. But what of the phrase “melt up”, which I saw recently? How preposterous is that?
Finally, a vote of thanks to Rebecca Long Bailey for a radical use of an old word: “My favourite hobby is having a Chinese takeaway and probably watching a Netflix box set on a Friday night with my husband.” No trainspotting or flower arranging for her. Expect she “curates” her chow mein.
•Jonathan Bouquet is an Observer columnist
