The Hindu Business Line : Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls

COUNTERS are ticking rapidly and profits pouring in fast, in tune with a relentlessly upward marching Sensex, precariously though on the horns of an unfathomable bull running riot in the market. If the law of gravity holds good for the index, we may have to come to terms with a fall, often euphemistically called `a correction'. But before the raging animal vanishes from our screens, let us get to know the `bull'.

Bull is "an uncastrated male bovine animal," defines Concise Oxford English Dictionary, though you may find Word redlining an important word in that phrase, to suggest `unsaturated', instead.

Bull is also "a large male animal, e.g. a whale or elephant," and you'd agree that the charts do often behave like these powerful beasts!

Bull is "one who buys securities or commodities in expectation of a price rise or who acts to effect such a rise — compare BEAR," states Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, and when bears enter Dalal Street, you'd know from headlines, such as `bloodbath in the bourses'. Bull is "a dealer on a stock exchange, currency market, or commodity market who expects prices to rise," defines Oxford Dictionary of Business. "A bull with a long position hopes to sell the purchases at a higher price after the market has risen."

Bull can mean, "formal proclamation issued by the pope (usually written in antiquated characters and sealed with a leaden bulla)," as http://dictionary.reference.com defines.

But bull is also "a grotesque blunder in language," according to Webster Dictionary, 1913, which defines the word in its intransitive verb form thus: "To be in heat; to manifest sexual desire as cows do." Where the bull and cow are both milk-white, they never do beget a coal-black calf, is an insight on elementary genetics from Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.

Bull goes with many a word, such as bull bat, the night hawk; bull calf, a stupid fellow; bull pump, a direct single-acting pumping engine; bull snake, the pine snake of the US; bull stag, a castrated bull; and bull wheel, a wheel or drum on which a rope is wound for lifting heavy articles.

The Golden Bull is "an edict or imperial constitution made by the emperor Charles IV (1356), containing what became the fundamental law of the German empire," states http://machaut.uchicago.edu.

Bull is a translation of Latin Taurus, a symbol of the Zodiac. However, with a `language advisory' from Encarta comes an alternative meaning of bull as "an offensive term for talk or writing dismissed as foolish or inaccurate," as an abbreviation of bull**** (aka `bulldust' on www.macquariedictionary.com.au, which defines `bull' as "an exclamation implying that what has been said is nonsensical or wrong", Bullamakanka as "an imaginary remote town, any remote place," and `bull artist' as "one notorious for excessive talk which is usually boastful, exaggerated and unreliable").

Tracing the origin of the word, http://encarta.msn.com notes, "Pre-12th century Old Norse boli." For a detailed account of bull's roots, here is help from Online Etymology Dictionary: "O.E. bula `a steer,' or O.N. boli `bull,' both from P.Gmc. bullon- (cf. M.Du. bulle, Ger. Bulle), perhaps from a Gmc. verbal stem meaning `to roar,' which survives is some Ger. dialects and perhaps in the first element of boulder." Another possibility is also postulated: "From bhel- `to inflate, swell' (the source also of the Gk. word for `whale;' see bole)." The word extended after 1615 to males of other large animals, informs www.etymonline.com.

"Stock market sense is from 1714. Bulldog is from 1500, perhaps from shape, perhaps originally used for baiting bulls; bullfrog is from 1738, on resemblance of voice. Bulldyke is from 1926 (see dyke).

Bull's-eye `centre of a target' is from 1833. Bullpen in the baseball sense is first recorded 1915, perhaps from earlier slang meaning `temporary holding cell for prisoners' (1809). Phrase to take the bull by the horns first recorded 1711," timelines the site.

Bulldogs are "Sterling bonds issued in the UK by foreign institutions," says Quanto Financial Technology. In A Prisoner's Dictionary, however, bulldog is "a prisoner who uses fear and intimidation to get something from a weaker person", and bull means guard. Bull refers to narcotics agent or police officer, as a drug-related street term on www.addictions.org.

Bull is "abbreviation for L. bulliens, bulliat, or bulliant, boiling, let boil," in Stedman's Medical Dictionary. Bulla is "a large elevation on the skin, containing serous or seropurulent fluid," informs Dorland's Medical Dictionary.

Bull Run is a small stream, 50 km SW of Washington, DC, where "two important battles of the Civil War were fought," informs www.encyclopedia.com.

On bullfighting, a national sport and spectacle of Spain, the site explains that the fight called corrida de toros in Spanish, takes place in a large outdoor arena known as the plaza de toros, and that the object is for "one of the bullfighters (toreros) — the matador — to kill a wild bull, or toro, with a sword."

In contrast, the fight in the stock market is one between bulls and bears, with no gory deaths but only tactical retreats, in the normal course.

"The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead," is a dangerous snatch from Much Ado About Nothing. When you take the bull by the horns, you deal boldly and positively with a challenge or difficulty, as www.allwords.com explains the idiom.

A story that's obviously not true is a cock-and-bull story; and to be a bull in a china shop is to be careless in the movement or behaviour, as Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary educates.

"Who'll toll the bell? `I,' said the bull, `Because I can pull,'" reads the rhyme The Death And Burial of Poor Cock Robin, and in the Old Testament you can spot at least two bulls. "Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf," in Job, and "Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net," in Isaiah.

Bullishness does not necessarily apply only to the stock market, indicates www.investopedia.com, because "you could for example be bullish on just about anything, including commodities like soy beans, crude oil or even peanuts."

For the hyper-bullish — who are "Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls," as in King Henry IV — it may not matter how the charts ascend, "Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, on meddling monkey, or on busy ape," as in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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