Or, maybe it's something to help you name Santa's reindeer, or the seven dwarfs in Sleeping Beauty, or even Donald Duck's nephews. Comes in handy when there's a trivia question in the bar, I guess.
For me, whenever I hear the expression Bull and Bear market I immediately know which one means up and which one means down by virtue of a pantomime my history teacher, Marjorie Tallman, performed in class one day in the middle '60s.
I completely forget the context of what made her tell us you can remember that a Bear market means "down" because you can think of a bear on its hind legs swatting down, hopefully missing you as you run away. Surely if the bear connects, you might not live long enough to care about any market.
Standing up, Miss Tallman made the motion with both arms of swatting down. As for a Bull market, meaning an "up" market she lowered her head as if to charge, imitating a bull with her hands alongside her head, index fingers pointing up, as if they were horns. A bull's horns point up, so therefore a Bull market means things are going up. I've never forgotten which is which thanks to Marjorie Tallman.
She was a fun history teacher, who was obviously animated. A home room classmate of mine had her in another period and distinctly remembers hers her climbing on top of the desk for some reason. Maybe she was acting out Custer's Last Stand. I have no idea, and my classmate doesn't remember either, since all this is nearly 60 years ago.
We had always heard Miss Tallman had written books, but were never curious enough to read any, and she didn't assign her own books to the class. Her books are still in print and range from folklore definitions to guides on Civics. A Google search revels she was only the second female teacher at Stuyvesant, when she started in 1932, and was there for 40 years. She was born in 1907 and passed away in 2000. She was at the school when my father attended.
When I visited my high school in 2019 at what for me was the "new" building at 345 Chambers Street in lower Manhattan, I was surprised to see there was a plaque with her name on it on the floor that housed the history classes. Now that I know a little more about her, I can understand why.
I was reminded of the whole Bull and Bear thing when I read Ben Zimmer in last week's Wall Street Journal's weekend edition. Ben rifts on the origins of a word that seems to be popping up frequently in the news in the prior week. And last week, it was the Bear market, because by definition, when the Dow industrial average has a decline of 20% lasting two months, it's considered official that we've entered a Bear market. Conversely, a 20% increase denotes a Bull market.
Mr. Zimmer traces the term Bear with regard to financial transactions as far back as the 16th-century from the expression, "Don't sell the bearskin before you've caught the bear."
Shakespeare, and Daniel Defoe all had phrases that translated to about the same thing, pretty much meaning, "don't count your chickens before they hatch."
Woven into the bear market is also the meaning of selling "short," selling stock you don't own, and then hoping that when you have to settle the sale three days later, you can buy the stock at a cheaper price because it's been going down. It's a gamble, because you might be forced to buy the stock back at a higher price, therefore losing money. There are all kinds of ways to make and lose money in the stock market.
As for the origins of a Bull market meaning a market on the ascend, Mr. Zimmer comes up short. He admits "the origins of the "bull market" are less obvious, with many competing etymological theories. (The bull may have been seen as a fitting counterpart for the bear because both were involved in blood sports pitting animals against each other.") Huh?
I like Miss Tallman's pantomime better. I've never forgotten it.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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