The Hindu Business Line : More important that a proposition be interesting than true

NOW that the Employees Provident Fund Organisation is thinking about investing in equities, people may be too worried about the safety of their PF monies to think of any hike in interest rates. In the end, we may come to terms with low interests on deposits while paying higher rates for loans, but it may be of interest to know that the word "interest" is from Latin interesse, meaning "differ, be important". Inter means "between" and esse, "to be", so the word means "be in the middle", literally. In Old French interest meant damage or loss.

"Where life hath no more interest but to breathe!" is a line from Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus that may reflect the agony of the old whose oxygen of interest income comes in trickles from savings, in shorter bursts than before. "With all speed you shall have your desires with interest," sounds like an apt wish for them, but that's from King Henry IV, though their only desire may be to have all interest.

Interest is the feeling of wanting to know about something or someone, explains the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It is "the charge made for borrowing a sum of money," is a line from Oxford Dictionary of Business. "My bargains and my well-won thrift, which he calls interest," is a Shylock dialogue, in a scene from The Merchant of Venice where he would be also saying gorier things: "An equal pound of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken in what part of your body pleaseth me"! And much later, "To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge."

The world of finance has simple interest, where I = Prt, where I is the interest, t the period and so on. Compound interest thrives in calculating interest on interest, so Albert Einstein is said to have referred to it as the eighth wonder of the world.

Practice of charging high rates of interest is called usury, from Latin usus meaning `used'. The preamble to The Usury Laws Repeal Act, 1855 reads: "Whereas it is expedient to repeal the laws now in force relating to usury." But fleecing interest rates are too common a practice on the street. The Usurious Loans Act, 1918 gives additional powers to Courts to deal in certain cases with usurious loans of money or in kind. There is the Interest Act of 1978 that repealed its 1839 predecessor, and also the more popular SARFAESI Act where `I' is for interest.

Section 2(28A) of the Income Tax Act defines interest as "interest payable in any manner in respect of any moneys borrowed or debt incurred (including a deposit, claim or other similar right or obligation) and includes any service fee or other charge in respect of the moneys borrowed or debt incurred or in respect of any credit facility which has not been utilised." Elsewhere the Act defines `person who has a substantial interest in the company' as one who is "the beneficial owner of shares, not being shares entitled to a fixed rate of dividend whether with or without a right to participate in profits, carrying not less than twenty per cent of the voting power."

"Islamic law prohibits the collection of interest, also commonly called riba in Islamic discourse," informs Wikipedia. "One form of the argument against interest is that money is not a good and profit should be earned on goods and services only; not on control of money itself." However, seller can resell an item at a higher price than it was bought for.

"A moneylender may stipulate as an increase of his capital, for the interest, and take monthly the eightieth part of a hundred," stipulate the Laws of Manu. "In money transactions interest paid at one time (not by instalments) shall never exceed the double (of the principal); on grain, fruit, wool or hair, (and) beasts of burden it must not be more than five times (the original amount)."

Compound interest, periodical interest, stipulated interest, corporal interest and also taking interest beyond the year were all banned. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma advises against "all kinds of crooked behaviour, companionship with any but the wedded wives, and usury." Something of academic interest?

Interest as a noun takes many an adjective such as avid, burning, close, considerable, consuming, deep, great, intense, keen, lively, passionate and strong, as Oxford Collocations would educate. It can also be particular or growing, active or passive, lifelong or passing. When using interest after a verb, you have a good choice: "lose, arouse, attract, awaken, catch, drum up, excite, generate, kindle, spark, stimulate, stir up, and whip up." Business lingo has controlling, minority, joint, and commercial interest to mean legal right to share in profits. "All the longer inflexions - interestedly, disinterested, and even the simple verb, are often said by more or less illiterate speakers with the accent on - est," notes H.W.Fowler in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage.

A quote of Beryl Bainbridge in The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations reads, "Some people like being burdened. It gives them an interest."

If you're interested, here's a G.B. Shaw saying: "The trouble is that you are only interested in art and I am only interested in money." That comes before his question to a lady's proposal, "What if the child inherits my body and your brain?" and the interesting definition of dancing as "a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire." On what's interesting, Alfred North Whitehead said: "It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true." Add some `fair' and your report is ready, auditors may hint, but their opinions are usually too dull to be interesting. As the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations informs, for Ambrose Bierce, politics is simply "a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."

Edgar Wallace would define a highbrow as "a man who has found something more interesting than women". Rose Macaulay has a tip for readers: "You should always believe all you read in the newspapers, as this makes them more interesting."

However, interest rate falls are too harsh not to believe even if news about them is not interesting in any pleasant sense of the word.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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