Friday, September 09, 2005

New Term

I would like to coin a new term. Unfortunately, I know it is not going to get anywhere because of rather - er - earthy connotations.

The term is menstrualize. It comes from the Latin menstruus, meaning monthly (which is a variation on mensis, month). To menstrualize is to convert something to a monthly rate; in short, it is analogous to annualizing something. For example, if your credit card gives you a 6% interest rate (annualized) for the first 6 months you have it, and then switches to an 18% interest rate (annualized), then it gives you a 0.5% interest rate (menstrualized) for the first six months, after which it switches to a 1.5% interest rate (menstrualized). This might, of course be approximate, as interest charges per month sometimes vary with the length of the month.

Seeing as there are some things that are calculated on a monthly basis, it seems to me that there ought to be a word for doing such a conversion.

Of course, for obvious reasons this term is unlikely to catch on.

That is all.

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