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A reader writes: Transparently Dishonest Word Omitted from New Speak List

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Word is transparent warning to withdraw your money from anyone uttering it

Dear SirFrom your catalogue of old words/new meanings you (deliberately?) omitted the most misleading and indeed most dangerous in this category. I refer to the word transparent, usually rendered as “transparency” which has been plucked from the three dimensional world and applied to accountancy.In its application in accountancy it is used by people who wish to give the impression that that they are well versed in this most demanding of professions. Such people talk about the need for transparency or for this or that to be in a state of transparency.It is no coincidence that the word is used in a direct ratio with the growth of opacity or the lack of “transparency.”An example of this will suffice. The finance sector crash which caused almost all New Zealand’s finance companies to collapse was due to this opacity. The words transparent and transparency were on the lips of all the operators and on all those who were supposed to be regulating them.The words are dishonestly used as synonyms for the single word audit which means verification. It means that you do not take anything at face value.The dishonesty in those who used, and still use, the words transparent and transparency is that they know that most people having heard the words so often from those in a position of authority believe that they mean the same thing as audit and verification.When anyone reading this hears the words transparent or transparency I advise them to at the earliest opportunity to withdraw their money from the stewardship of the individual using either of them.

Yours faithfullyCDC Lineen