Monday, August 02, 2004

Euphemism of the day

From an Irish Times article (subs. req'd) describing a government report into a rampant culture of overcharging at one of Ireland's retail banks, National Irish Bank (NIB); one of the bank's favourite tactics was surreptitious increases in the interest rates charged to borrowers:

The report says the tampering with interest rates was known amongst bank staff as "adjusting the decimal"

UPDATE: Too many euphemisms from this scandal to keep track of. In Tuesday's Irish Times, Fintan O'Toole pulls out another one:

When it emerged that a letter accompanying an internal NIB investment bulletin had referred to "the people who have money invested offshore already or whose money is 'Hot'," we got straight-faced denials that hot money meant hot money. Beverley Flynn [Fianna Fail TD and NIB staffer] told the High Court, on oath, that "hot" in this context might have meant "a person who was 'hot' for an investment or pension, somebody about to do business".

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