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Funnily enough, the Japanese word for "(business) deficit" is literally "red letters" (赤字): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%B5%A4%E5%AD%97 https://en.wiktion
by yongjik 5y ago
Funnily enough, the Japanese word for "(business) deficit" is literally "red letters" (赤字): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%B5%A4%E5%AD%97 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%B5%A4%E5%AD%97
(Wiktionary says it was borrowed from English - no idea if it's true.)
- pdabbadabba 5y agoInteresting! Similarly, in English we would say that a business was "in the red" if its expenditures exceeded its income. (Or something like that. It's a colloquialism, so it doesn't really have a specific technical meaning.)
- goodcanadian 5y agoThis is because losses were traditionally written in red ink back when books were done on paper. Profits were in black ink which is why profitable businesses are sometimes referred to as "in the black."
- s1artibartfast 5y agoAlso associated with "black friday" where many retail company annual incomes surpassed annual costs
- martyvis 5y agoTypewriter ribbons that were 2 colours were always black and red. (I presume that was a carry over from when your main ink would have been black or possibly blue, and the alternative would have been red). As your normal credit entries would have been black, if the "bottom line", the sum of your accounting book column was negative, showing a loss, you would emphasize it with the red type.