| A bevy of girls, a drove of 0xen, a kindly of kittens, a muster of peacocks, a rout of wolves, a skin of flying geese, and a skulk of thieves – but what is the collective noun applicable to more than one accountant? A chattering of accountants, perhaps? Certainly, it sounds appropriate, for that seems to be the prevalent noise they make when they collect together. |
| Some time ago not now, it was considered extremely fashionable to become an accountant, particularly a chartered accountant. It was the most prized of qualifications – as alluring to a future employer as to a prospecting mother-in-law. It became the rage of the 1960s and the 1970s, overtaking the earlier popularity of law, medicine, banking and engineering as money spinning qualifications. (The civil service stood apart, for no one joined the service to earn a living, because it did not offer a living wage. It did however offer luncheon vouchers to power). Accountancy gave away in the 1980s to computer sciences and today, in the 1990s, it is the turn of the MBAs. They have become the professional flavour of the decade. [EXTRACT] |
Published in THE NATION 27 August 1992, and reprinted in THE ARMLESS QUEEN (1994). |
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