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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Not German, and probably of interest only to a few. I posted it several months ago,
having been quite convinced that an article in TIME had egregiously misused it in
statement that "In Afghanistan, loyalties are fungible...." Loyalty is in no way
comparable to a commodity. It cannot be bought, it cannot be sold, it cannot
be traded.
My dictionary says:
fungible
adj.
ML fungibilis < L fungi, to perform: see FUNCTION Law designating movable goods,
as grain, any unit or part of which can replace another unit, as in discharging a debt
I have found it ina quotation in a book by Thmas Homer-Dixon, who has very impressive
credentials, entitled "The Ingenuity Gap". He is describing the workers in London's new
business center:
"Some of them, at least, belonged to an endlessly fungible international super-elite
of investment bankers corporate lawyers, and equity traders whose members are equally
comfortable working anywhere on the planet, so long asthey have the right computers,
software, and communications equipment."
He means that these men have much the same education and training, and could change
readily from one employer to another. This I find an acceptable use of "fungible".
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
My introduction to fungible was in a New Yorker cartoon, with a partner (at a law firm chastizing a clerk) and explaining, "Partners are forever, clerks are fungible!*" or something to that effect--
Ann Rule use the word to, in one of her books about a mother who had Munchousen by proxie, and would kill her childern as they reached the age of 2 or so (she had 3 different husbands, and lived in several different small towns, and in 15 years, had something like 10 children, all who die of 'sudden infants death syndrom'... and Ann Rule use the word to define the mothers attitude to her children... they were fungible... and used to gain sympathy for her self...
i think it can be used beyond grain and commodities, and yes, international brokers are fungible...
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Loyalty is in no way comparable to a commodity. It cannot be bought, it cannot be sold, it cannot be traded.
Where you been all your life, Dr. Bill?
My question is which way the tradibility goes for fungible. If a dollar bill is fungible because one dollar bill is just as good as another are our investment bankers, corporate lawyers, and equity traders fungible because one is just as good as another? The quote makes it sound as though it's the jobs and not the investment bankers corporate lawyers, and equity traders that are fungible.
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