Cliche of the Week 117 – Austerity Measures

Austerity measures, aimed at curtailing government debt and increasing revenue, have spread around the globe as the green shoots of economic recovery are trampled back into the dirt.

What news pages really mean by austerity measures is that governments have cut budgets and increased taxes.

Usage has doubled in the past two years to about 1200 times a week and the phrase is more often used in connection with Greece, followed by Britain and the US.

“More than any other public figure, the German Chancellor has been made the scapegoat of Europeans battered by the three-year-old sovereign debt crisis and the austerity measures governments have imposed to combat it.” (New York Times, November 13).

“Now, one of Italy’s most popular politicians is Beppe Grillo, a former comedian, who has risen in opinion polls by jumping on widespread discontent with the austerity measures of Prime Minister Mario Monti.” (The Wall Street Journal, November 13).

“They (Europe) are expected to confirm that the region and its core members are facing strong recessionary gusts, as weaker members stagger under the weight of the prolonged debt crisis and the crippling austerity measures deployed.” (The Globe and Mail, November 12).

Cliché of the Week appears in The Australian newspaper Mondays. Chris Pash’s book, The Last Whale , a true story set in the 1970s about Australia’s last whaling station and the activists who fought to close it, was published by Fremantle Press in 2008.