ABSTRACT

The language of finance, rife with moral innuendo, often associated with physical activity, hedging, hiding, manipulating and transacting, reflects the dynamism and the ambivalence toward all financial activity. Financial terminology followed the evolution and geo-economic shifts of commerce, money exchange, and banking operations, from Italy to the Low Countries to its permanent home in England after 1600. As financial principles grew increasingly complex, computational, and as technology compressed time and human contact, language increasingly integrated mathematical computer terminology. The development of the printing press in Germany coincided with the creation of minting and coining presses across Europe. By the mid-fifteenth century French and English currency was standardized, at least nominally, public banks were established in Italy, and real estate speculation expanded in the form of land bonds. In consequence, relationships between money in its function as a medium of exchange and the commodities that it purchased became increasingly indirect.