The controversy on “what’s in a name” started with a comment by one of the characters of the historic play “Romeo and Juliet” by noted dramatist William Shakespeare. In the aforesaid play heroine Juliet remarks, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet”.
Many do agree with the opinion of Juliet. They contend that there is no importance to the name of a person or a thing. What matters is what something is and not what it is called. But there are many others who do not accept the above reasoning. They insist that names should be right and fair. And unjust names are required to be changed. In recent years we notice that former names of many places in our country have been replaced by new ones. Last year a name ‘Raj Path’ of one historic road in our capital city of New Delhi was changed to ‘Kartavya Path’. Anyway, we Indians are familiar with changing of names and surnames of brides after their marriages.
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In fact in this universe, there is nothing that does not have a name. Birds, animals, fish, trees, flowers, fruits, forests, ants, stars, planets, air, water, sky, earth, etc, all have names. You just think of a thing and you would know that it has a name. And if anything does not have one, then we name it.
Normally, one thing has one name. A few have more names. But still there is one thing which has similar to our Vishnu Bhagwan (The Lord has one thousand names) very many names. And that one thing is none other than the medium of all our trading activities – the money.
In olden times, there was no any common means of exchange in commercial dealings. They then followed a system called barter. This method involves the provision of one good or service by one party in return for another good or service from another party. Thus one often bartered meal for a drawing. People exchanged rice for wheat, oil for cloths and fowls for firewood. Even services were exchanged.
In course of time, a common medium was adopted for the purpose of exchanging goods and services. This new medium was termed as currency. Currency means money – a standard means for carrying out business activities. At first coins were brought into use. They were made up of gold, silver and copper. Coins were invented in the 7th century BC. Paper notes came much later. The first recorded use of paper money was found in China in the 7th century AD.
Currency means money. But this one thing has multiple names in different contexts.
Thus a payment made to a worker is called wage. A payment given for professional advice or service is called fee. Charitable donations of money to the poor are called alms. Property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage is called dowry. A small sum of money given as a reward for service provided is called tip and a sum paid for killing or capturing someone is called bounty. Similarly, capital salary, charges, tax, honorarium, compensation, asset, fine, toll, duty, wealth, fund, profit, finance, bonus, remuneration and so on are various names of the one and the same thing called money!
