Liquidation

I reached into my grab bag and found liquidation from November, 2008. This is an interesting word. It means changing some thing's physical state from solid to liquid.

Wikipedia has the term referring to "the process by which a company (or part of a company) is brought to an end, and the assets and property of the company redistributed.

See the annoying use of parentheses? The sentence would read better without them. Their presence stops the eye's progress across the screen and slows comprehension. In fact you don't need the comma either.

The word "liquidation" has a fluid metaphor embedded in it. Maybe submerged below it. We see this fluid concept underlying business terminology. A house whose appraised value is less than the amount owed is referred to as "under water." A Liquidator gets cash for objects. Liquid assets are things that we can turn into cash. Cash flow is money coming in or going out., Stopping the bleeding means to keep a company from running out of cash. Red ink (as in blood) is debt." "Dissolution of a business is ending it. Retained earnings are what owners of a company get to keep. We talk of a business sinking into debt. People who can't get money when they need it have "liquidity issues." And so on.

Maybe this water metaphor is used so often because water is a very powerful concept. We evolved from water and we are almost all water. We have to drink water to stay alive, so maybe we make an implicit analogy between personal survival and the survival of humans. Whatever, we think of a good company as fluid and having a robustly positive cash flow which will allow everyone to prosper. That's what all of us want, to prosper and have good lives.

What do you think about this? I'd like to know. Post a comment.

Entrepreneurship is the lifeblood of my professional activities. For entrepreneurial real estate, go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.