When to be worried

January 22nd, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

Amid all the inauguration coverage was a description of the economy as appearing to be “more foreboding” than any at the start of an administration since FDR’s in 1933.

A “foreboding” is a “prediction, portent or presentiment, especially of something bad or harmful.”

We chose to substitute “forbidding” — “looking dangerous, threatening or disagreeable: repellent.” The difference is in acknowledging that while things certainly might get worse, they already look plenty bad.

“Forbidding” also is not the same as “forbidden,” which is “not permitted; prohibited.”

In Eden, according to the Bible, there was the “forbidden fruit.” Unfortunately for Adam and Eve, and some say for the rest of us as well, the fruit was much more tempting than forbidding. One of them should have had a foreboding.

Entry Filed under: definitions