Let’s Just Call the Market Crash Fallmageddon

The fall is here.

Financial markets today are plunging, plummeting, stumbling and tumbling, and they are also crashing, crumbling, declining, dropping, failing, flailing, and falling.

In the main Wall Street Journal story this morning on the global sell-off a form of fall (fell, falling) was used five times in the first three paragraphs — and “fell” was used three times in one paragraph.

“The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1000 points and was recently 560 points lower, or 3.4%, at 15905. The S&P 500 fell 63 points, or 3.2%, to 1908. The Dow entered a correction on Friday, falling 10% from its recent peak, following its worst week since 2011. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 180 points, or 3.8%, to 4525.” (Accessed 10:45 a.m.)

The New York Times said the market had tumbled, dropped, and plunged. Reuters had the click-bait headline “Bloodbath in the markets,” on its main U.S. site but used more muted language in the story itself, saying instead that markets opened “sharply lower” and “slipped” into correction mode.

CNBC said markets “plummeted”* after a global “rout.”

I write all this not to criticize financial journalists. (However, “Bloodbath” is too strong. News organizations shouldn’t provoke fear. Even the headline masters at The New York Post and The New York Daily News used softer language, writing, respectively, that there was a “massive selloff” and that markets had taken a “nosedive.”)

Instead, the 1000-point market dive should provide some rich and inventive ways for people to describe what is, we hope, a mere stumble.

What are some creatives ways you’ve heard people describe the market moves today?

*I will always remember what plummet means thanks to Mrs. Moss, my 8th grade English teacher. She said think if it as meaning “the plum met the ground.”)