What’s a five letter word for greed, corruption and moral turpitude? In today’s recession-wracked economy it seems the B-Word, BONUS, is the new dirty word for the depravity and excess exemplified by the AIG bonus-bestowed instant millionaire employees._
It wasn’t that long ago that the Bonus word adhered closely to its original meaning, from the Latin for “good.” Bonum, boni, bona, bonum, bono, bonum._
In one of my favo movies, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” Clark Griswold, food technologist and inventor of the non-nutritive cereal varnish” and “the last real family man,” stakes his purchase of a backyard swimming pool family xmas gift on his receipt of his annual xmas salary bonus check. We worry with him when his bonus check is late and cheer him along as he rants against his boss when he finally receives a “Jelly of the Month Club” gift certificate in lieu of a bonus check….“I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless,dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-assed, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where’s the Tylenol?
Latin for the opposite of bonus? Malus. As in: Noun
malus (plural maluses)
(business) The return of performance-related compensation originally payed by an employer to an employee as a result of the discovery of a defect in the performance.
Do the new government-funded AIG welfare millionaire employees have a malus clause in their contracts?
Mediaize 