PORK CHOPPED:

PIIGS no longer flying (Kurt Brouwer, 2/05/10, Fundmastery Blog)

Earlier, I wrote about the national debt troubles of Greece and Portugal (see, National debt crisis in Greece & Portugal). In doing some reading on this issue, I came across this story, which struck me as an example of political correctness gone a bit mad. Caution: this is a ‘not so serious’ post. Here’s the background: Greece and Portugal have been grouped in an acronym, PIIGS, which stands for Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece & Spain. Though I don’t think I’ve used PIIGS in any post, it has been fairly common. This and other acronyms stem largely from the fact that bond traders communicate in shorthand so things get reduced to acronyms — BRICs, MAVINS and so on.

Apparently, one dismal soul at Barclay’s Capital took offense to the use of PIIGS to refer to those Mediterranean countries and banned the use internally.

Bloomberg wrote a piece on this with the awesome headline, ‘At Barclay’s Capital, PiiGS No Longer Fly.’ Unfortunately, another dismal soul at Bloomberg must have taken offense and updated the online headline in the piece it to this [emphasis added]:

Swine Acronym Ordered Out of Barclay’s Reports (Bloomberg, Feb. 5, 2010, Alexis Xydias, Rita Nazareth and Lynn Thomasson)