(Roughly) Daily

Mr. and Mrs. Mantalini in Ralph Nickleby’s Office (source: Charles Dickens Page)

From Paul Toutonghi, a list of businessmen’s names from Dickens— the absolute master of the onomatopoeic insult:

Nickleby

Hawk

Squeers

Gride

Quilp

Gradgrind

Tigg

Pecksniff

Heep

Smallweed

Krook

Merdle

Flintwich

Casby

Fledgeby

Wegg

Hexam

Next?  Perhaps lawyers?   (Jaggers, Vholes, Tulkinghorn, Grewgious, Grimwig… )

As we thank our forebears for our family names, we might recall that it was on this date in 1817 that the New York Stock Exchange came in out of the cold.  The origin of the Exchange dated back to May 17, 1792, when the Buttonwood Agreement was signed by 24 stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street (under a buttonwood tree). Then, on March 8, 1817, the organization drafted a constitution, renamed itself the “New York Stock & Exchange Board,” and moved into a rented room down the road at 40 Wall Street.  (Today, the trading floor– one the NYSE’s several exchanges– is at 11 Wall Street.)

Traders at work under the buttonwood tree