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On the television program "Sunday Morning" this morning, Charles Osgood reported the plight of America's Certified Public Accountants.
(CPAs are Chartered Accountants, I believe, in Irl and UK.)
It seems that CPAs do a lot more than prepare taxes and audit accounting procedures these days and they want a new name to project this new image.
The name CONDITOR was suggested but it was not well received. Seems the beleagured CPA felt it was conjuring up images of condors and dinosaurs.
(Would an enlightened CPA be Conditor Lex?)
So for now they call the new name X-Y-Z and are still open to suggestions.
Now there is a challenge.
No guarantee they'd pay any attention BUT what do you suggest as a replacement for the initial name CPA when the vocation has expaned into new fields of endeavour like estate planning, insurance advice and all that goes into financial planning?
Ready? Set? GO!
wow
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Well, let's see: Estate Planning, Insurance Advice and all that goes into Financial Planning plus CPA = epiafpCPA. Here's what the anagram server makes of it: A CAP PEP IF A CPA PEP IF CAFE PAP PI FACE PAP PI PACE PAP IF CAPE PAP IF Hmm--FACEPAPPI doesn't quite seem the thing, somehow. What about feppiacap? 
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The name CONDITOR was suggested but it was not well received.
I didn't see the program, wow, but did they give a rationale for the term CONDITOR? Where did they get it and how does it project the image they're seeking? To me, "CPA" does include those other financial tasks, so I guess I'm an advocate of "if it ain't broke..." why confuse the issue. Seems it would be easier to reeducate the public about the expanding roles of the CPA than to coin a whole new term and have to educate from scratch about that, as well as differentiate from the former meaning of CPA.
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Seems it would be easier to reeducate the public about the expanding roles of the CPA than to coin a whole new termNow, if you are going to go all logical on me .... Have no idea answers to questions you asked about why etc, I just report what I heard and ask for contributions with the hope some will be whimsical!  wow
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WOW: Guess I'm more curious than whimsical! BTW, and apropos of nothing, I do believe your last post was No. 10,000 on the Q&A forum.
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My wife is a CA (CPA in the US), and I prefer to use that good old term "beancounter" - but not around her. She, of course, hates it.
But she can't think of any term for the job which doesn't carry the same slightly negative connotations as "accountant". Most of the other terms are taken by people with other skill sets or professional emphasis anyway, she thinks. She couldn't understand where "conditer" might fit, and doesn't like it!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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In UK I see the term CA as a qualification, not a job. The job as described in the original post would be covered by IFA =Independent Financial Advisor if I understand correctly.
Rod
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In UK I see the term CA as a qualification, not a job. The job as described in the original post would be covered by IFA =Independent Financial Advisor In US we have Estate Planners also Financial Advisors etc. These days it seems bankers want to sell bonds/stocks. Brokers want to also be bankers. Lawyers want to do estate planning. There is a lot of cross-overs and the CPAs want to get in on the expanded opportunities to enlarge their field. With those CPA job quals they evidently feel they could do a good job in other areas than just "counting beans" (yucky applletive) ... thus, as I grasp it, the whole controversy about a new "name" to encompass the expanded fields they want people to know they are able to do! Does that make sense?  wow
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Conditor sounds to me like "condottore" - Italian for conductor, which if I recall correctly, is used in mafia circles to mean something like "fixer." Somebody in the Mob who takes care of things - or people - is called the condottore. This is a connotation that the CPA's might wish to avoid - or maybe they want a more exciting image. 
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old hand
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Along the same lines as Hyla, when I saw this thread, I thought of conditorei, which (when spelled correctly, which I probably haven't been able to pull off) means bakery/cake pastry shop in... um... German? Neurons misfiring. Sorry if I've offended anyone who actually knows. (Unlike me, who's relying on vague memories.)
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Sorry to drag this thread back to life, but does anyone remember the "Sailing on the Accountant Sea" sketch in the Monty Python movie "The Meaning of Life"? In that case, perhaps Fiberbabe meant "condottieri", who were the leaders of mercenary armies in Italy a few centuries ago? Seems appropriate!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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conditorei, which (when spelled correctly, which I probably haven't been able to pull off) means bakery/cake pastry shop in... um... German?
Very close Fiberbabe. I had to look it up to check the endings (and why is the confectionor masculine and the cakes feminine?)
Konditor m -s,-en confectioner. Konditor-ei f -,-en patisserie.
Rod
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does anyone remember the "Sailing on the Accountant Sea" sketch in the Monty Python movie "The Meaning of Life"?
Oh yes, a delightfully blood thirsty sketch, or rather it's almost a whole separate 30 (??) minute film which leads up to "The Meaning of Life". The whole lot gets shown about once a year on BBC.
Rod
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German gender
The reasons why words take the gender they do, in German or any other language with grammatical gender, is a mystery to me and, I suspect, to everyone else. There are a few formal rules in German, like the fact that any word with a diminutive suffix is neuter and hence, Fraülein, Mädchen, and Bübchen (young woman, girl, little boy) are all neuter and, structly speaking, if substituted by a pronoun should be referred to as "it". Different languages don't even go by the same rules. While "sun" is masculine and "moon" is feminine in the Romance languages, it's the reverse in German. Go figure. Maybe someone (Nicholas, are you there?) can shed some light or point to a site for info. on this question.
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Originally gender had nothing to do with sex. How they came to be equated is beyond me. In some languages today they have no relation whatsoever. Trying to equate gender with sex would be as ludicrous as trying to relate color to shape. All balls must be red just because pomegranates are? Leaves are green so all flat objects must be? What planet are you from?
Besides, in modern English babies are neuter. "Oooh, it's sooo cute! Is it a boy or a girl?"
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but gender of nouns does allow some humour. An Englishman eating a meal in Paris exclaims in his execrable French, "Garcon, il y a un mouche dans ma soupe!" "Non monsieur, c'est UNE mouche" "Goodness me, what good eyesight you've got!" and to stress the importance of getting it right, my wife's (Swiss) great-aunt taught me this question: Which is correct; "Je n'ai pas lavé ma cuillère" or "Je n'ai pas lavé mon cuillère"? The second sounds like "mon cul hier". English translations: "I have not washed my spoon" and "I did not wash my bum [ass] yesterday"  . I might add that that was probably the cleanest French the Great Aunt taught me! Rod
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