ENE13.

04i SOM: Lanchester – Money Talks (New York Times)

Last Names, First Date Sec: A or B
Hui, Bianca, Sandoval, Mark, Tan, Cian 3/13/2020 A
COMPREHENSION
1. What is the main point of the article? What is Lanchester’s opinion regarding the
language of the financial industry?

It is made clear that Lanchester's opinion of language in the financial industry is

that it is largely inaccessible to those outside of it. It is purposefully made complex
and hard to understand so that only those who have had the privilege to study it can
understand it and use it to their advantage.

The main point of the article is to raise awareness to the unjust barriers present in
the financial industry that prevent ordinary people from making informed decisions
regarding their own financial lives. While he thinks that it is important for us to take
the initiative to learn about the financial jargons, he also calls for the simplification of
the language of the industry. His opinion is that it is overly complicated to the point
that is made unnecessarily difficult for an ordinary person to understand it.

2. What connection can you draw between the article of Lanchester and that of
McLaughlin’s? How are their opinions regarding language similar? Provide
evidence/quotes from the text.

A clear similarity in opinion between both articles is that language has the
potential to be used as a tool of oppression by those in power.

In McLaughlin's article, he talks about how those in power subtly use figurative
language to manipulate consumer behavior in a way that benefits them. Similarly,
Lanchester talks about how only those in power and who have the privilege to study
finance can understand the complicated financial jargon and use it to easily
manipulate those who can't.

Both articles also talk about how words and terms used tend to stray away from
their "proper" meaning. In Lanchester's article, the example he uses is that of a hedge
fund. He states, "A hedge is a physical thing. It turned into a metaphor; then into a
technique; then the technique became more sophisticated and more and more
complicated; then it turned into something that can’t be understood by the ordinary