Have a little imagination

"Wall Street versus Main Street" is the new shorthand running rampant across the news, and it's only taken about a month to go to the top of the cliché league tables.

eg. "Financial crisis: Juggling Wall Street and Main Street". Wall Street is the financial sphere, Main Street* is consumers and people and regular stuff.

See how bad it's gotten--Main Street as adjective: "The spreading financial gloom that envelops Wall Street has hit that most Main Street of American sports: NASCAR." (link) Barf!

I challenge you to find a mention of this foul phrase before about 18 September. It's the new "fit for purpose", which was new enough when John Reid said it about the Home Office in May 2006 to require lengthy deconstruction on the Today programme, but is now chucked out randomly about everything from A-levels to knitting.

* I'm not even going to go into the whole Main Street/High Street distinction in the UK, although it does add another layer of ickyness to the phrase when used in Britain.

posted by Flora @ 11:43 AM