The Hindu Business Line : Name of the new war is `trade'

THE world's second largest economy, Japan, hinges its hopes on trade surplus to help in achieving growth beyond the 0.1 per cent recorded for the last quarter, even as China is getting ready to play a major role in the world's biggest free trade area, after the ASEAN summit concluded a few weeks ago. And, the day's news talks of Mr Kamal Nath's proposal of a $5-billion target for bilateral trade between India and Israel in three years.

Trade is a hot topic, be it in stocks, currencies, products, and so on, free or restricted, legal or otherwise. Trade winds are a-blowing, but the World Bank is not too happy with the `wave of regional agreements' that is `sweeping the trade world'. The Bank's Global Economic Prospects 2005, published recently, fears that these agreements violate the most basic principle of the multilateral trading system, viz. `non-discrimination'. Trade has to overcome distances and difficulties, and trade blocs have to cope with mind blocks too. What better time than this to come to terms with `trade'?

Trade is "the buying and selling of goods and services," explains Concise Oxford English Dictionary. The first meaning, however, on Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is "a path traversed", cited `obsolete'. Trade was thus a track or trail left by a person or animal, but that is because the word is from "Old High German trata, track, course; Old English tredan, to tread."

For your morning workout, you may pull on a tracksuit and lumber onto a treadmill rather than energetically pursue the tarred track, but it will shock you to know that the treadmill's original use was as an instrument of prison discipline.

The `buying and selling' meaning of `trade' was first recorded in 1555, accoriding to www.etymonline.com. The other meaning, as `one's habitual business' is about a decade older. "Trade wind (1650) has nothing to do with commerce, but preserves the obsolete sense of `in a habitual or regular course.' Trademark first attested 1838; in figurative sense, 1873."

When you learn a trade, you learn an occupation. In Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part II, Falstaff asks Feeble, "What trade art thou?" and the response is, "A woman's tailor, sir." In Julius Caesar, Flavius asks impatiently: "Speak, what trade art thou?" And a commoner answers, "Why, sir, a carpenter." Another commoner is more elaborate: "A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles." That makes Marullus angry: "What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what trade?"

In King Henry V, the Bard introduces different occupations: "Where some, like magistrates, correct at home, others, like merchants, venture trade abroad." That sin can be as routine as trade, you learn in Measure For Measure, where Isabella says, "Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade." From the conversation between Lysimachus and Marina, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, one can learn the difference between trade and profession. Here's a snatch:

"Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade?"

"What trade, sir?"

"Why, I cannot name't but I shall offend."

"I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it."

"How long have you been of this profession?"

People in the trade are those in a particular area or industry of business. Losing trade is to lose customers. "Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow, angering itself and others," is a tip from King Lear.

Trades are deals. It is not necessary that only commodities and products be traded, for one can trade punches and abuses too, that is, giving and receiving alternately.

Trade appears in the `category tree' of Princeton University's WordNet as follows: "act — human action; human activity — group action — transaction; dealing; dealings — commerce; commercialism; mercantilism — trade."

The Oxford Dictionary of Business concedes that the concept of trade is difficult to define for taxation. About fifty years ago, the Royal Commission on the Taxation of Profits and Income set up the criteria that distinguished trading from investment, and these were called `badges of trade'.

There is also trading of badges to help phoneys look like original, beware!

Trade advertising, as opposed to the one aimed at the consumer, targets "members of the distribution channel". Trade barriers take many forms such as quotas, tariffs, and other restrictions. There can be trade bloc barriers too, as for instance, the World Bank's trepidation.

If you look at `tradition' that seems close to trade, you find that its roots are in Latin `tradere', meaning `deliver, hand over'. Isn't that what a trader also does? But `tradere' is also the origin for `traitor', the one who betrays; and the word `betray', that seems to have been in use for longer, is again from "tradere `hand over,' from trans - `across' + dare `to give' (see date (1))," as the Online Etymology Dictionary guides.

Date, the word referring to time rather than the fruit, comes from Latin `datus' `given,' Sanskrit `dadati' - `gives,' Greek `didomi' - `give, offer'. "The Roman convention of closing every article of correspondence by writing `given' and the day and month — meaning `given to messenger' — led to data becoming a term for `the time (and place) stated,'" explains the etymology reference. Technology helps to date-stamp all trades and leave trail to pick up later.

To travel back in time, read the Old Testament, Genesis: "And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein." And again: "These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for the land, behold, it is large enough for them; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters." It is a different matter that these days, marriages can turn into trades, as much as trades can turn into anything but peaceable.

In Othello, Iago speaks of "the trade of war" in which he has slain men; yet, he holds "it very stuff o' the conscience to do no contrived murder."

For Cleopatra, it is not war but love: "Give me some music; music, moody food of us that trade in love."

Between love and money there is a trade-off; so too between what are increasingly becoming incompatible, viz. trade and peace. For, in the new battlefield called economy umpired by the WTO, your armoury has to be stocked with tradable products and services when the invaders strike.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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