The Hindu Business Line : Warrant: Be on guard!

WARRANT is top news, not a House in limbo, nor the trucks off the roads. Whether or not politicians are able to come to terms with warrants, we can attempt to. `Warrant' is an official authorisation enabling the police or some other body to make an arrest, search premises, and so on, explains Concise Oxford English Dictionary. "Here is a warrant from the king to attach Lord Montacute," Brandon would say in King Henry VIII by Shakespeare. It could be something serious too, as Lucio talks of a death warrant in Measure For Measure: "The provost hath a warrant for his execution." You sign your own death warrant when doing something that is harmful to your own position.

As a verb, warrant means ``make a particular activity necessary'', explains Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, before giving an example: "Obviously what she did was wrong, but I don't think it warranted quite such severe punishment." Another meaning is, ``officially affirm or guarantee''. Not surprising, because the word originates thus: "12th century. From Old Northern French warant, variant of Old French guarant (source of English guarantee), from, ultimately, a prehistoric Germanic word meaning `to be on guard' (see ward)," according to Encarta.

Oxford Dictionary of Business defines warrant as a security that offers the owner the right to subscribe for the ordinary shares of a company at a fixed date, usually at a fixed price. Investors love the word especially if it has dividend before it, because ``dividend warrant'' is "a cheque issued by a company to its shareholders when paying dividends."

For more on the finance, I turn to Wikipedia and it cautions that warrants are also signals of a government in crisis: "When a government agency issues cheques which they are unable to pay (due to lack of money) but are redeemable at some point in the future, usually with interest, these are also called warrants." Then, there are ``naked warrants'', issued without an accompanying bond. Warrants are not all that bitter; they are "often included in a new debt issue as a `sweetener' to entice investors," as per www.taxopedia.com. Do you know that in the military, payroll cheques for soldiers are also referred to as warrants, and that they have warrant officers too?

"There is law and warrant, lady, for my curse," is not what somebody is saying in Karnataka, but are the words of Cardinal Pandulph in King John. So, to quip, what do you call a wrong warrant caused by somebody running a hurried errand? An errant?

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

D. Murali

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