Wouldn't credit it
Sir: I think that Nicholas Luard and Christopher Fildes have erred in point of etymology (City and Suburban, 17 Novem- ber) by claiming that 'credit' means 'he believes it'. I do not believe it.
Most of our banking terms, surely, come from Italian and in this case the source is `credito', demotic for Latin 'creditum' being the past participle of 'credere' and meaning, 'believed in, trusted'. Thus if you deposit money with a bank you get a piece of paper confirming that you have en- trusted it to the bank and are accordingly a creditor. The other one would otherwise be `debet' and not 'debit'.
You are in good company. When Hans Fuerstenberg, the great Berlin banker, died, they found in a locked drawer in his desk a single slip of paper saying, 'The liabilities are the ones nearest the window'.
Ian Fraser
South Haddon, Skilgate, Taunton, Somerset
Previous page
