Larry the Lexicon Llama has thick rim glasses and buck teeth. He has a lazy eye, but you can't tell which eye is the lazy eye. He has a polka dot bow tie and a striped shirt. It's a lot. Did I mention that he was an anthropomorphized Llama? I felt like that was obvious from the name. Any time he is talking just imagine the cinematography like he is being shot on a shaky home movie camera. I'm not going to keep describing it, so you're just going to have to imagine it. Why should I have to do all the work here?
"Hello loyal viewers, it is I Larry the Lexicon Llama here to teach you the secret money meanings behind words you thought you already understood. Many words mean one thing in every day speech and quite another thing when talking about money. Many words have several different meanings even within the financial sphere depending on the context. Many times you will feel like someone intentionally designed it this way to be more confusing. Whether that is true or not, you can take the mystery away with the power of knowledge. This is financial literacy at its most literal. Knowing what words mean is a big part of literacy, in case I had to point that out." Larry snorts and pushes his glasses up his nose. He just thinks he is so darn clever.
"To illustrate the point about how words can have multiple meanings we are going to explore the many different uses of the words credit and debit. Before we get started, how many different meanings to these words do you already know? I will give you a minute to think about it." He's standing there watching everyone else scratch their heads about it while he already researched the answer ahead of time so it's making him feel smarter than everyone in the room. He is just looooving it, and you can tell, because it's written all over his smug llama face. "Who has a definition that they would like to share with the group?" Larry the Lexicon Llama asks the assembled anthropomorphized animals. He is holding his cue cards so tight he is bending them. He can't bring himself to just deliver the answers because he feels too important right now.
Colleen the Card Carrying Collie raised her hand quickly. She wanted to appear eager to answer because she was so knowledgeable on the subject, but really she didn't want anyone to take the one answer she knew. "This is a debit card!" Exclaims Colleen with too much enthusiasm. She shows off the card as if it has mystical powers. "That's one meaning of the word." she says, as if she had explained anything.
"I'm glad you brought up debit cards." Says Larry the Lexicon Llama. He really does look genuinely pleased. "How many different uses of the words debit and credit can you name that are associated with your debit card?"
Colleen the Card Carrying Collie, who was already sitting back down, had not been prepared for a follow up question. She had this expression on her face that makes it look like she is saying "Think fast Colleen!" to herself. The reason for this is that she was indeed thinking that very thing. Not to be outdone she says "Debit Cards. Something I know about debit cards is that you can swipe it as a debit where you enter your pin number, or as a credit where you sign the receipt. So that's two more ways right there." Colleen the Card Carrying Collie says defiantly.
"Very good Colleen." Says Larry in this patronizing tone. She was giving the right answers and he was still trying to make her sound stupid. "What other uses of debit and credit can you think of?" He was grinning this low key sadistic grin as he turned the screws. He knew she was only going to get so far at this game.
Colleen the Card Carrying Collie had sniffed out Larry the Lexicon Llama's game by this point so now she was ready for him. She pulls out her credit card and shows it off around the room. "This is a Credit Card." She says like no one has ever seen one before. "That allows you to buy things with credit."
"You're on a roll!" Says Larry the Lexicon Llama. "What did you mean by, you can buy things on credit?"
Colleen the Card Carrying Collie fanned herself with her paw and looked around the room with feigned awe. "Look at all this attention on little old me. I'm sure someone else wants a turn while I'm busy just jabbering away." Larry the Lexicon Llama looks like he is trying to say something but Colleen the Card Carrying Collie is already sitting down and Barry the Banking Bison is already stepping up to rescue her from the spotlight.
"Lets see if there are any ways left over for me to talk about." says Barry slowly like he is pondering it real deep. "Colleen already told you about the first type of credit I was thinking of. The kind where you can come on down to Barry the Banking Bison's Bank and borrow money on credit. We give you the money you need now and you pay us back over time. We charge competitive rates for the service as is only fair. The bank will check your credit score to make sure you qualify for the line of credit of course." Barry the Banking Bison smiles very wide and pauses to give out a few business cards to everyone adjacent to him.
"A completely different type of credit comes to mind in the way it is used to describe deposits into an account. Let me use it in a sentence for you. My paycheck was credited to my checking account through direct deposit. The flip side of this coin is the way debit is used to describe withdrawals. Such as, the most recent debit on my account is my mortgage payment." Barry the Banking Bison seemed like he was warming to the topic so Larry the Lexicon Llama felt the need to go ahead and cut him off.
"Thank you Barry, we all appreciate your financial insight. Any other ways that anyone else can think of?" Larry the Lexicon Llama picks up his pace a little towards the end of the sentence, he is running out of definitions and he wants to have the last word.
"My turn." Says Sharon the Oversharing Shark. She is busting out her seat just like she is busting out of her...ummm...she's just kind of busting out in general. Let's leave it at that. She is pursing her scarlet shark lips together and has her fin held out in the universal shark sign language signal for not so fast air-sucka. "When used in accounting a debit increases an asset or decreases a liability. The opposite is true of a credit which decreases an asset or increases a liability. I know it's confusing y'all." Sharon the Oversharing Shark says as she pats her fins in the air so everyone doesn't freak out about how smart she is. "There is an easy way to remember it. In accounting entries it works the exact opposite of your bank account. In an accounting ledger a debit increases an asset, and in a checking account a credit increases the assets you have on deposit. So it's simple to remember because they are the opposite." Sharon the Oversharing Shark says as if the simple thing to do wouldn't have been to make them not the opposite of each other at all. Why can't they just mean the same thing for once? Why do two short little words have to have so many flipping different meanings?
"That's a great way to remember it." lies Larry the Lexicon Llama. He tries to interject the one last definition he has when Sharon the Oversharing Shark blurts out "I have webbed toes!" She takes off her heels and holds a fin up for everyone to inspect. It is a fin. There is no webbing. There are no toes. Sharon the Oversharing Shark is aggressively making eye contact with anyone in a four meter radius; She is daring them to challenge her assertion.
Larry the Lexicon Llama was distracted by the display and Rudolph the Ruins Everything Rhino gets a hold of the microphone. "Credit has some non banking related meanings also. Such as giving me credit where it is due, or the credits at the end of a movie." Having taken Larry the Lexicon Llama's last word and thereby ruined everything Rudolph the Ruins Everything Rhino hands the microphone back to Larry the Lexicon Llama.
"That is correct Rudolph. Those were the last definitions of the words credit." Larry says scornfully. He's so butt hurt that he didn't get the last word.
"I got extra credit on my spelling test!" Says Amanda the Adorable Antelope. Awww. Look at her batting those eyelashes. So precious.
I hope you are good and confused about all of the unnecessarily diverse definitions of these overplayed homonyms. Until next time beloved viewers. You are a credit to your species.
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