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Idiom: In the black
You’re either in the black or the red regarding money.
Money, it’s an intriguing topic, isn’t it?
We all need it.
Most of us want it.
Some of us never have enough of it.
Sometimes it feels like life is a constant struggle to bring home the bacon.
With rising prices, increased taxes and wonderful new things to buy every day, we’re in a continuous battle between being in the black or red.
The most desirable place to be is in the black.
Once you’re in the black, you never want to get out of it again.
When you’re in the black, your bank account has a positive balance, and you’re happy.
On the other hand, if you’re in the red, you don’t have enough money in the bank to pay your bills, and you are miserable.
Charles Dickens put it very clearly when his character, Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield, said:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen (pounds) nineteen (shillings) and six (pence), result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought (nothing/zero) and six (shillinngs), result misery.”
Mr. Micawber – Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield
Staying in the black could be the recipe for success.
I grew up in a small town on the coast of Newfoundland.
The primary source of employment there was the cod fishery.
My father was a construction worker, not a fisherman, but like everyone else, he still fished for enjoyment and to feed his five kids.
One day, we were down at the docks.
My father was cleaning his fish alongside the other men.
Fishers tend to be a rough bunch.
They are good people but rough.
I was only about 7 or 8 years old at the time, but I remember that they were talking or yelling, actually, about money and debt.
One old fisherman, covered in fish guts and blood, pointed at me with his sharp knife and shouted, “If you don’t have the money to buy it, you don’t need it!”
It was his way of advising me to always stay in the black.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 75.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.