Over My Head

I don't profess to be an expert in any field. One particular realm where I'm really in the dark, though, is Wall Street. (Not quite as in the dark, thankfully, as one of my very good friends who will remain unnamed, who actually told me three days ago that he never knew Wall Street was actually, in fact a street).

This blurb in The Onion made me smile, because sometimes even the most meticulous reading of The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times yields nothing more than sheer frustration.

JPMorgan Chase Acquires Bear Stearns In Tedious-To-Read News Article

NEW YORK—As a volatile market reacts to news of the Bear Stearns fire-sale deal with a surge in stock prices but reduced bond yield, officers...

Check out the full text - it's hilarious.

A Time For Everything

Busy Bee. I know. I am guilty of neglecting my blog as of late. My apologies. I'm trying to figure out a better way to balance my schedule, but time management has never been my strong suit. It doesn't help that we recently lost an hour so as to save daylight. And on that note...

It's not "Daylight Savings Time," people, it's "Daylight Saving Time."

My Mom inquired as to why we couldn't just call it Daylight Savings Time. Most people do just that, anyway. (Much to my chagrin, of course. It's almost as bad as people saying they shop at "Nordstrom's." Check it twice. It's Nordstrom. But, as usual, I digress.)

I had to think for a moment on how best to explain why it's saving time and not savings time. What follows is the explanation I gave to her.

Savings is a noun, perhaps most commonly used when referring to money, as in "life savings." Saving, however, is a verb in gerund (-ing) form, which can, at times, represent a noun. For example, in the sentence, "I like shopping," shopping is a gerund in noun form, where shopping represents an activity. (You could not say "I like shop," because shop is a verb. "I like to shop," however, works because the infinitive form to shop is also representative of a noun in this case. But this is getting confusing.

Basically, Daylight Saving Time means that daylight is being saved, and so saving is a verb. The word "save" makes it tricky because of its aforementioned alternate definition - as a noun referring to monetary savings. If it was time to go shopping though, you would not say "It's shoppings time!" You would say "It's time to go shopping," or, "It's shopping time," where shopping is a verb.

In any case, I love that it stays lighter later. I didn't however, love springing forward. I hardly get enough sleep as it is.