bank holiday

     A "bank holiday", during the depression of the 1930's, meant the closing of a bank, even though it was supposed to be open for business. The government gave the banks permission to close in this way more than once. They feared a "run" on  the bank--the same kind of "run" on a bank you can see in It's A Wonderful Life. Scenes like the one portrayed in the movie really happened. People heard that banks had failed, and what they heard was true. They wanted to get all of their money out of their own bank, in case it should fail, too. Everyone wanting money at the same time, as we see in the movie, could make the bank fail. Since all of the money was not available in cash, the bank would be unable to meet its obligations, and might fail, permanently. The bank holidays were meant to give the banks a chance to accumulate more cash, and the public a chance to calm down. There was no government insurance for bank deposits then. The FDIC--Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation--was a product of the depression. When people lost their money in a bank failure in the 1930's, it was lost forever.

ex post facto

     An ex post facto law is unconstitutional in the United States. Ex post facto means after the fact. Any new law passed in the United States takes effect after the law is passed. Our legislators cannot pass a new law that makes something illegal in the past--something that wasn't illegal when it was done. For instance, a new law that makes it illegal to text and drive has nothing to do with all of the texting and driving people have done in the past. No one can go looking for all of the people who once did this and have them arrested under the new law. The law begins after it has been passed. The problem of ex post facto legislation, or implementation of legislation, is most likely to occur when punishments for a crime have been increased by statute. If the maximum sentence for a particular crime was one year, and has recently been increased to five years, should that sentence be imposed on people who have committed the crime, but who have not been prosecuted or sentenced yet? An accused person in this situation would have a good case for an ex post facto complaint.

plurality

     You may read or hear in election results that a candidate won by a plurality of the votes cast. A plurality is not the same as a majority. A majority of the votes means more than half, or at least 51%. A plurality simply means more votes than the other candidates, even if no one got more than 50% ( 50 out of every 100 ). For example, if candidate Smith got 31% of the votes, and candidate Jones got 29% of the votes, candidate Smith won by a plurality of the votes. The rest of the votes may have been split between several candidates. This is more likely to be the result of a local election or a primary election, in which several candidates might be running for the same office or nomination. In most of our national elections, the vote is usually split between candidates of the two major parties, with only a few votes being cast for an independent candidate.

letters of marque and reprisal

     The United States Constitution reserves to our federal government the right to grant letters of marque and reprisal. Letters of marque and reprisal are permission from the government to attack enemy ships and seize both ship and cargo if possible. What would have been piracy in peacetime is used as an irregular military force. During the Revolutionary War, the new government of the United States authorized people who owned ships to attack the British at sea. They were called privateers--private citizens who became something like a navy. Their reward was a share in any ships or goods they won in battle.

toll roads

     Some of the older roads in this part of the country ( Southeastern Pennsylvania ) are called "pikes". They were once toll roads, built as profit-making enterprises. A group of investors formed a company, which built a road. Then they hired someone to collect a fee for the use of the road.  The venture was meant to pay expenses and return a profit, eventually. You can still see a couple of 18th century houses that look like they must have been built for the toll keeper. They are set right on the road, without even a foot to separate them from passing cars. The roads may have been widened, but the other old houses are not close to the road, as these are, and the roads could not have been widened much--they are barely two-lane roads now. 
     I don't know what the fee for using the road was--a matter of a few cents, which seems quite a bargain, in modern money. The few cents must have been an expense to be considered in 18th-century Pennsylvania, for many people. Old records such as the cost to use a toll road are how we learn about money in the past--how people got money, how much money most people had, and what the necessities of life cost at the time. Without a historical understanding of money and finances, much of the record of the past wouldn't make sense to us today.

     

squares and roots

     A square may be an unhip person--or it may be a fairly simple math term. A number multiplied by itself is "squared".
2x2 is 2 squared, or 4.
3x3 is 3 squared, or 9
4x4 is 4 squared, or 16.
5x5 is 5 squared, or 25.
The "square" may be indicated by a little 2 at the top of the number.
     A "square root" is the opposite, in a way, of a square, and has its own mathematical sign--like a long division sign, with a check at the end. The square root of a particular number is the number you could multiply by itself to get that particular number. For example--
the square root of 4 is 2, because 2x2=4
the square root of 25 is 5, because 5x5=25
the square root of 81 is 9, because 9x9=81
These are more difficult when someone hasn't chosen example that come out even. You might need a calculator.

are there more black people on welfare?

     A politician was quoted last week as saying that more black people are on welfare than white people. Not so. More white people are on welfare. More white people are in prison, too. More white people are a lot of things. Consider the simple math--white people make about 87% ( 87 out of every 100 ) of the population, black people about 13% ( 13 out of every 100 ) . It is popular to use any statistic that has more than 13% of the black people--in prison, on welfare, under the poverty line--as proof that "more" black people are in prison, on welfare, or under the poverty line. It's just not true, and this isn't a fine point. Black people are on welfare out of proportion to their numbers--if  more than 13% of the total on welfare are black. If the statistics are really the same, we would expect 13% ( 13 out of every 100 )of the people on welfare to be black, and 87% of them to be white or "other". They aren't. Blacks do make up more than their numbers in the population in all of these categories--proof that we need more intervention where it counts--school. But "most" of the people on welfare, in prison, and in poverty are white.

fidelity bonds

     A fidelity bond is a kind of insurance policy. It is taken out by someone's employer to ensure his or her honesty and faithfulness, or fidelity.  If the employee commits fraud, the insurer who issued the fidelity bond reimburses his or her employer.Unfortunately, fidelity bonds can make some kinds of internal corporate fraud into a "can't lose" situation for the employer. The issuer of the bond does background checks on the employee being insure by a fidelity bond, but there is no reason to fear financial loss through fraud, so employers have small incentive to stop employees from defrauding the corporation. They have nothing to lose.

usury

    Usury is loaning money at interest rates so high that they are illegal. The Old Testament forbids usury, and in medieval and early modern Europe, that was taken to mean, by Christians, that all money-lending for interest was forbidden. That is why Christians would borrow money from Jews, if they could arrange a deal. The Jews used the definition of usury in the Old Testament--interest could not amount to more than 50% ( half ) of the principal ( the amount borrowed ) over the life of the loan ( by the time it had all been paid back). These standards are actually very conservative--according to the 50% rule, all of our mortgages, and many of the rest of our loans and credit cards, would be forbidden as usury.

what is a state church?

     A state church is the official church of a country--like the Lutheran church in Germany, or the Anglican church in England.  Different countries have different laws, so not all state churches are arranged in precisely the same way. Most state churches are supported by the state--that means that everyone who lives in the country with a state church pays taxes to support that church, whether or not they are members of that church.  In England, the bishops of the Anglican church sit in the House of Lords--like senators here in the United States. The British sovereign is head of the Anglican church. In other countries, the church may be headed by its own religious leaders, but it is still a state church. Remember that some of the first Europeans who settled in America were religious dissenters--they did not agree with the state church, and did not want to be members of it. As long as the British king or queen was head of the state church ( the Anglican church in England ), any dissent was seen as disloyal to the crown. One of the first things the founders of America did was to insist that it would not have a state church or religion.

primogeniture

     Primogeniture was the custom in early modern England, and is often misunderstood, from what I read on the internet. Primogeniture meant that only the oldest son would inherit the estate. If there were other sons, they had to fend for themselves--enter the military, or marry a wealthy woman. They might have an income, but the house and lands would belong only to the oldest son, so that the farmland would not be divided when the head of the family died. At one time, all estates were landed estates--even church estates. The farms were worked by cottagers, who had small homes of their own, and who had a share in what they raised.  Prosperous farms meant a prosperous estate. Farms that were not taken care of fell into disrepair, and the estate sometimes wound up in ruins--through mismanagement.

what plants do for us

     We need the plants, and it could be that they need us. People and other mammals breathe in the air, use the oxygen, and breathe out carbon dioxide. Plants "breathe in" carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. This is usually called "plant respiration"--the same thing it is called in people, although plants do not have lungs, and don't breathe the way we do. In a world with no plants at all, we might use up all the oxygen, and we wouldn't be able to breathe.

average

     Average is what you get when you add everything together and then divide it up again--like portions of a stew. For example, if you add 6 and 4, you get ten. Divide by the number of "things" you are averaging ( two ), and the average of 6 and 4 is 5. The average of ten and thirty is twenty. The average of 50 and 100 is 75. The average of A and F is C--if half the students in a class get an A, and half get an F, the average grade is a C.
     Averaging works the same way with more than two items--the average of 10, 20, and 30 is 20.  The average of 4, 6, and 11 is 7. The average of two F's and one A is a D. ( two different number scales are used in grading--assuming that F=5, and B=2, the average is 4, or a D . 5+5+2=12. 12/3=4 .
If  F=0, and B=3, the average would still be a D--on this scale a "1". 0+0+3=3. 3/3=1).
 The average of 2 A's and a D is a B.
     Averaging is used for a lot of things--height, weight, age, baseball statistics--anything that can be expressed as a number.

grading on the curve

     Grading "on the curve" is familiar to most college and high school students. Instead of a standard that defines the limit of each grade--90 for an "A", 80 for a "B", for instance--raw scores are "adjusted" to fit a particular model. The model may be shaped like a bell--as in the well-known bell curve. The philosophy behind the bell curve is that most scores are average. The next largest "groups" of scores would be above and below average. The edges of the bell shape would be the exceptional scores--whether exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. In a class of 30 students, the bell curve may be used to adjust scores so that 3 people always get an "A", and 3 people always get an "F". The above and below average groups may contain 6 people who get a "B", and 6 people who get a "D". The remaining 12 people will get  a "C".
     Using "grading on the curve" the distribution of scores remains the same, even when all or most of the students being tested get a "raw score" of  below 50%--or above 90%. This is an extreme model--most teachers who use a "curved" grading system only do so when many students are failing. Failing students may simply have points added to their test scores, instead of having the scores adjusted to fit a model. They may be failing because the test was poorly designed, or because the material on the test has not been taught in class.
     Students who have been too often "graded on the curve" may be surprised when they encounter a standardized test. Their teachers may be surprised as well.

diplomatic immunity

     "Diplomatic immunity" is one in a list of terms misunderstood by the average barroom philosopher. They trot out this phrase to assert that a foreign diplomat, or even a foreign citizen, cannot be arrested for a crime or misdemeanor. Not so. "Diplomatic immunity" means a diplomat --carrying diplomatic papers--cannot be shot as a spy if caught behind enemy lines during wartime. Any other person not in military uniform may traditionally be shot as a spy. So diplomatic immunity won't really help with that parking ticket.

bulls and bears

     Bulls and bears are sports teams, but they are also Wall Street "teams". The "bulls" believe that business is good, and predict that stock prices will rise. They "bet" on this by buying stocks, hoping to sell them for more than they paid for them when the price goes up. The "bears" believe that business is bad, and predict that stock prices will fall. They try to wait for the best time to sell their stocks--before prices fall, so they can get the most money for them. So if the "bulls" want to buy, they have to offer the "bears" a price for their stocks that makes them want to sell. Perhaps this does make prices rise a bit. The stocks having been bought and sold, the price may go down--because those interested in buying the stocks ( bulls ) have already bought them. An attempt to sell them again would have to be at a lower price, since the buyer is not as interested as the "bulls" were when they bought them. The game turns into a "self-fulfilling prophecy".

in the black

     "In the black", to a business or corporation, means making a profit ( making money).

     "In the red", to a business, means losing money.

    Graphs or charts of profits and losses are traditionally drawn to match--the profits are shown in black ink, the losses in red.

law and order

     Some of the oldest written history in the world is in the Old Testament. The society described in the Old Testament had a hereditary priesthood, and a code of laws, both civil and criminal. These laws included the distinction between murder in a fit of passion and murder in cold blood. They included financial liability laws, such as who should bear the financial burden of a deceased cow, when the cow was left in care of someone else. Their civil laws also provided for the cancellation of a contract to borrow money, if done within three days--something we have only instituted recently. The Old Testament people had laws against rape, including a provision that if the woman could have been heard by her neighbors, she should have cried for help. If the woman could not have been heard by anyone, crying out was not deemed necessary to prove a case of rape. Our modern investigators use a technique similar to what Daniel did when he was sure two men were lying--he separated them, and each told a different story.
     The genesis of all law codes is the people. Those who believe that we have the right to govern ourselves also believe that we are all more prosperous and secure when we have the capacity to insist on a set of  standards, and to enforce them in such a way that the "public" is satisfied with the result. For instance, murder has been known to start a blood feud that can last for generations, and endanger all of the people in the community. If we want our community to survive, crimes have to be dealt with in a way that convinces people that the law works for them.

brothers and sisters

     Brothers and sisters--that one is obvious--the same mother, the same father. A term you rarely hear anymore is half-brother or half-sister--meaning the same mother, but different fathers--or the same father, but different mothers. Now that so many people marry more than once, this term should be more useful than ever. Half-brothers and half-sisters are related, though not as closely related as brothers and sisters are. Half-brothers and half-sisters may have different last names, even though they are closely related. Not to be confused with step-brothers and step-sisters, meaning the woman and the man marrying for the second time each have children from a previous marriage. Step-brothers-and step-sisters are not biologically related--although if their parents have a child together, that child will be a half-brother or sister to all of them.

blackmail

     Blackmail is an informal term for extortion, presumably extortion by mail or letter. Extortion is a crime for which the offender can be prosecuted--if caught. The extortionist finds out something about someone, and threatens to tell unless the victim pays. Sometimes this might be knowledge of a crime the victim has committed, but the more usual case would be attempting to entrap a prominent person through evidence of an illicit sexual liaison. For instance, a disreputable-looking woman might come up to someone in a public place and throw her arms around him, while someone snaps a picture. The picture is then "sold" to the victim of the extortionists. When extortionists use the mail--for example, by sending a copy of the photo described above, along with a demand for payment--it may still be called "blackmail". You can watch this in action in the Hollywood classic Elmer Gantry.

statute of limitations

     A statute of limitations defines the term during which a crime can be prosecuted.  A common statute of limitations might be seven years for theft. That means that after seven years, the case is no longer pursued, and cannot be prosecuted. Murder has no statute of limitations--that is why you sometimes read about a murder case being tried after thirty or even forty years. Lesser crimes often do have a limit. Since the limit is written in the law code, it is called the statute of limitations.

dictionary advice

     An unabridged dictionary supposedly contains all of the words in the English language--although sometimes a few are missing. All of the words means just that--everything, even if it is obscene, offensive, or merely incorrect. The lexicographers who decide what belongs in the dictionary use standard print media as a guide--so even common misspellings are included. While you should use the dictionary for spelling and definitions, do not suppose that because a word is in the dictionary, it is acceptable to use. If you use the dictionary, learn what the abbreviations you will find after some words mean--a key to the abbreviations should be in the front of the dictionary.  Here are some commonly used abbreviations--
arch.  stands for archaic, meaning no longer in use because it is old-fashioned
inc. stands for incorrect
obs. stands for obscene
off.  stands for offensive