Archive | December 8, 2014

December Meme – Day Eight

The Meme

Today’s prompt is from [personal profile] aoifes_isle: Obscure factoid that everyone should know.

I went with an obscure vocabulary word!

Obscure factoid that everyone should know.

fungible
adjective
Definition of FUNGIBLE

1: being of such a nature that one part or quantity may be replaced by another equal part or quantity in the satisfaction of an obligation (oil, wheat, and lumber are fungible commodities)

So, this word was a revelation to me, in the context of budget items are often fungible. Not personal budgets, as discussed yesterday, but, say, the budgets of major corporations, charities, governments.

If you give a college a grant of $1m only to repair roads, then they can shift every cent in their repair roads budget, up to $1m, to other categories. So you are, in effect, funding, say, the Making Centaur-People lab by your roads only donation.

If I win a $50,000 gift card only for groceries (they happen, really), then I have $50k I don’t have to spend on groceries. See? Fungible.

It’s a neat word, and a good one to apply when people are debating public budgets.

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