Go ahead, say "derring-do," I "dare" you

John Bollinger creator of the eponymous Bollinger Bands, an astute means of emphasizing "technicals" instead of "fundamentals" to gauge the strength of an equity and its movement in the stock market, recently bemoaned rising inflation and a falling market, yet with one "positive" sign of "strength" which he named as Wells Fargo, the large banking concern dating back to the 19th century.

"Wells Fargo, WFC. The name conjures up images of the old west, of blazing guns, trustworthy drivers, strongboxes filled with gold, daring do, simpler/happier times…. Wells Fargo unsheathed its Winchester and let the bears have it right between the eyes; they raised
their dividend, from 31 cents to 34 cents."

The correct spelling is derring-do, (or derring do) Mr. Bollinger, not daring do. Derring-do means: boldness, great courage; (Concise Oxford English Dictionary); brave and heroic deeds (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary).

The derring-do Mr. Bollinger referred to was that although Wells Fargo's second quarter profits had fallen by 22%, it still managed to declare a dividend two cents greater than projected.

Yet, let's not pick on Mr. Bollinger (a brilliant market strategist). The unabridged Oxford English Dictionary provides a defense: Derring-do is a combined form of "two (old) words: dorynge (meaning daring), and don (to do), literally "daring to do." (These two words) were put together by a chain of misunderstandings and errors that have come to be treated as a kind of substantive (noun) combination taken to mean daring action or feats, desperate courage." Since "daring" and "derring" both branch from a common root, we must judge Mr. Bollinger's solecism as a very light one. Bollinger only misspelled the term, he used it properly--the more important consideration.

For those who may have deeper interest in the term, it can be traced as far back as Geoffrey Chaucer, 1374. (See the Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary).

As for Wells Fargo, I don't judge their dividend announcement as so much a "heroic deed" as an act of "desperate courage." If the inflationary period we are entering doesn't end until 2010, as Mr. Bollinger speculates, we may all be engaged in acts of desperation, not all of them courageous.

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