Loans and Lending in the Age of Illiteracy

If you look up loan and lend you'll find some gibberish about how those words are interchangeable now, but once upon a time they were not. You can lend me money or loan me money, these days it's all the same.

I need a word for the act of lending, and a different word for the thing itself, the loan. Everybody knows what a "loan" is: I don't think anyone would call it a "lend". We're not that far down the slope of the next Dark Age, not yet. So, loan is the thing, then, and lending is the act.

I'm perfectly happy to use lending (with an "ing") and loans (with an "s") to make my distinctions. I won't insist that "loan" must be a noun and "lend" must be a verb. Obviously, there should be some backflow from "loans" as thing to "loan" as noun, and from "lending" as action to "lend" as verb. But I won't insist.

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This is not an econ blog so maybe you don't know. But maybe you do know the difference between "debt" and "deficit". A Federal "deficit" is one year's budgetary shortfall. The Federal "debt" is the accumulation of deficits.

I need the words "loans" and "lending" so I can make a similar distinction. The act of "lending" creates an addition to the accumulation that I am calling "loans".

The difference between the words "loans" and "lending" is more obvious than that between the words "saving" and "savings". But again, the distinction of meaning is similar. Saving (without the "s") is an act. Savings (with the "s") is an accumulation. The act of saving adds to the accumulation of savings.

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In econ much is made of "stocks" and "flows" where "stocks" (not stock-market stuff) are accumulations, and "flows" are changes to the accumulations, additions to or subtractions from stock. The example always used is a bathtub: The water in the tub is the "stock". Water coming out the faucet is a "flow". Water going down the drain is a "flow".

Debt is a stock; the deficit is the flow.
Savings are a stock; saving is the flow.
Loans are a stock; lending is the flow.

It has to do with levels and rates of change. The water in the tub is at a particular level. Water goes into the tub at a rate, which changes the level over time. The stock is the level, and the flow is the rate.

With all the focus on the Federal debt and deficits these days, these decades really, maybe everyone already knows the difference between "debt" and "deficit". Great! Loans and lending, savings and saving, these are not such prevalent concerns, but the distinctions of meaning match those of debt and deficit.

Apparently I have no ending for this post.

Oh! Happy Thanksgiving.