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Monday 2 April 2012

Spot the frippet: fungible.

What could be more satisfying than a fungible?

No, seriously, don't you want to see one? To touch one? To have, in short, and to hold one, from this day forth etc etc?

It's clear from the sound of it that a fungible is something important, something mysterious. There's something about the word that conjures up images of things growing secretly in silent cellars until...

...well, it's hard to know until what, until we know what fungible means - and, of course, almost no one does know what it means.

Until now.

I mean, did you know you're a fungiblevore? Well, you probably didn't because I think I may have just made up the word, but the principle is good. Yes, you eat fungibles

It sounds suspiciously like a spongy fungus, but that's not it. A fungible is something perishable (usually some sort of food)  that you buy by weight or volume.

Wine counts as a fungible, and so, I should think, do peas, few if any shops selling peas by the dozen. Rice and pearl barley must count as fungibles, too.

So there we are. Instead of thinking I must buy some more flour and olive oil, we can say to ourselves we're getting a bit low on fungibles.

One small step towards a happy and rich life, I reckon.

Well, every little helps.

Spot the frippet: fungible. This word comes from the Latin word fungibilis, which is, oddly, from fungī, to perform.

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