Words That Finance Has Changed The Meaning of Forever.

As TMM waits for the Fed's taper or non taper, it occurred to us that our careers in finance have seen our understanding of many words in the English dictionary mutate far from their original meanings. So in the cause of linguist conservation we feel it only right to remind ourselves of their original and, some would say, true definitions.

Taper – Something you ask the barber to do to the back of your hair.
Hike - To go on a walk in the countryside
Rally - An event with cars or campaigners
Crash - What a car does.
Bubble - A sphere blown from a soap solution.
Stops - What a car does when it confronts an octagonal sign
Yield - To submit, quantity of a crop.
ARM - Appendage.
Legs - See "ARM".
Leverage - A plank of wood placed over a fulcrum.
Seagull - A marine bird
Butterfly - A pretty insect
Future - As in flux capacitor
Condor - Endangered avian predator
Whale - Large seaborne mammal
Roll - Small round bread served with turkey dinners
Capital - Seat of government
Spot - Acne
Forward - A direction, opposite of backward
Spread - Something to put on bread and crackers - eg Philadelphia or Gentleman's Relish
Libor - A common Czech name.  Libor is a Czech masculine given name of Latin origin, derived from libare 'sacrifice' or from word liborius free. (see here)
Long, Short - adjectives describing length
Curve - a line that is not required to be straight, as in curve in the road
Depo - A storage yard or warehouse
Greenshoe - A green shoe
Option - A choice
Choice - An option.
Regress - To return to a less developed state
Call - A way to communicate telephonically
The Street - The road outside
Axe - A bladed implement used to chop wood or heads
Swap - To exchange something, perhaps football cards.
Exchange - To swap something
PE - Physical Education
Delta - A crap airline
Mark - A masculine name
Greeks - Bearers of gifts of dubious provenance
Hedge - A line of shrubs in your garden
Cross - Angry
Index - At the back of a book
Flow - Speed of a river
Rates - Council tax
Seat - A potentially valuable piece of furniture, or a Spanish car.
ECB - England and Wales Cricket Board
Fed - Nourished
Buba - A large gentleman you are warned will become your friend if you go to Prison.
Old Lady - Contemporary of your grandma
Threadneedle - Something your grandma does
Unched - Cockney description of Quasimodo
Flatten- A hedgehog meeting a steamroller
Tail - Something at the back of a dog, horse, cat etc
Put - Place something on a surface.
Curves - Rubensesque feature
Straddle - An equine implement
Risk - A game that takes forever to play
Survey - Source material for 'family feud/fortunes' questions
Cycle - Method of transport
TV - Something you watch
Front-runner - Usain Bolt
Black Scholes -  Ginger footballer in United away kit
Cover - A blanket
Ref - Bloke with a whistle at a sports game
Emu - A flightless bird
Bailout - What an Itatian captain did when he failed to do it fast enough on the Costa Concordia
Return - To go back, key on keyboard
Volatility - The speed at which a liquid evaporates.
Alternatives - Other options
Cliff - See white, Dover
DIs - Detective Inspectors
Bills - What you pay at the end of a meal
Bond - Covalent, Hydrogen and other ways to stick atoms together.
Coupon - Money off
Principal - Head teacher
Interest - A hobby.
SWF - Single Wealthy Female
Entertainment - Doing something you enjoy with people you like
Bonus - Something that is UNEXPECTEDLY received as an additional benefit.
Equity - To be completely equal.
Resistance - Electrical unit measured in ohms.
Support - A truss.
Compliance - Doing what you are told by others.
Compliant - Pretty drunk and happy to go along with anything.
Fix - To repair to proper state.
Head Hunter - A Cannibal
Margin - Blank bit on the left hand side of the page where the teacher makes comments.
Quant - British fashion designer who gave us the mini-skirt.
Techs - Higher education colleges teaching practical skills.
Misselling - A Roger Hargreaves character who ran a shop.
Wave Count - Activity performed by surfing judges.
Bobl - A pompom of wool on the top of a hat.
QE, QE2 - A series of Cunard liners.
Schatz - A number 2. Or a German expletive.
TP - A native north american's tent.
Var - A unit of reactive power of an alternating current.
Overdraft - The breeze above your head.
Overdrawn - A picture by Picasso
Fine - Just Dandy.
Fee - The word before Fi,Fo and Fum.
Banker - Upstanding and trustworthy pillar of the community
Garden Leave - To leave your garden to go to work.
Free Cash Dispenser - Something that gives you free cash.
Crack Spread - The diameter of a builder's derriere.
Convertible Bond - Timothy Dalton
Convexity - Feature of a good skateboard
Vega - Vegetarian from Nevada
OMO - A brand of detergent
Super Mario - A game character
Carry - Lift and move something from one place to another.
Liquid - A material that conforms to the shape of its container.
TARP - A large protective plastic sheet.
Google - Ten to the power of one hundred.
Apple - A tasty fruit.
Raider - A member of an American football team headquartered in Oakland.
Troika - The three omnipresent cups at most Russian table settings (all filled with vodka).
Small cap - Hat for a boy
Vampire Squid - Vampyroteuthis infernalis, a small, deep-sea cephalopod.
Stocks - Something you put criminals in and throw rotten vegetables
Dove - Stout bodied bird with a short short neck
Hawk - Predatory bird with a penchant for doves.
Rate - To judge a performance
Prime - Stage of life when you are in your finest form
Benchmark - A mark on a bench.
Spoos - eating utensil used for liquids
Whites, reds, greens, blues -  Denizens of a Crayola box
Decay - Characteristic of Detroit
Premium -  Good, better than usual; something that you don't expect to end up worthless
COP/RUB -  the goal of most teenaged males
Gilt - The feeling you get for doing something you shouldn't have
Fat tail - a mistake you wake up next to in the morning
Poison Pill - Mossad aspirin
VIX - cough medecine
Strip - to remove clothes
OIS - more than one oi, a British interjection
Book - something you read
Dollar Yen -  a desire to acquire US currency
Repo -  To forcibly take back, viz. Emilio Estevez in "Repo Man"
Swap Spreads - Exchange duvets
Aussie -  Ex-Sabbath frontman whose actions often defy explanation, indeed belief. reputed to have remained too high for years on end

Please feel free to add your own. Some have already been flagrantly stolen and added from the comments section below.