‘Great Recession’: A Brief Etymology

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

The “Great Recession” has taken hold.

As a term, that is.

The title “Great Recession” seems to be gaining some currency. After months of
floundering over what pithy moniker to call this mess we’re in, a number of analysts,
economists, historians, reporters, columnists, critics and even International Monetary
Fund officials have begun using the term, often with a qualifier like, “what some are
calling ‘The Great Recession.’”

Clark Hoyt, the Times’s public editor, asked me on Tuesday who had coined the phrase,
and when. I wasn’t sure, so I did some archive searches.

Brian Stelter, a colleague who covers the media, wrote back in December that “In the last
week, ‘Great Recession’ has become a popular phrase.” Here’s a quick, highly
unscientific Nexis archive search on articles containing the term “Great Recession”:

Sourc
e: Nexis archives. Some big caveats: Though I tried to weed them out, these numbers do
contain some duplicate stories (e.g., content that was syndicated); in some cases the term
“Great Recession” may not have been capitalized and/or may have had an indefinite
article preceding it (i.e., in a phrase like “this could be the beginning of a great
recession“); and given the plethora of blogs, podcasts, etc., that don’t make it into the
Nexis archives, these sources are by no means comprehensive.

The chart does give you the general sense that the term really caught on in December,
after months of more sporadic use. Most usages of “Great Recession” that occurred
before autumn were made in a predictive sense. In April, Portfolio’s Jesse Eisinger, for
example, predicted that “The next president will take office during what may well come
to be known as the Great Recession.”

But here’s the thing: Nobody can take credit for coining the term “The Great Recession”
during the last year. Why? Because the “Great Recession of 2008″ is not the first
recession to be slapped with the lofty title. Every recession of the last several decades
has, at some point or another, received this special designation:

• Some economists believed the recession of 2001 would be a “Great Recession.”

• In “The Return of Depression Economics,” first published in 1999, Paul Krugman
wrote about the “Great Recession” of his era.
• The downturn of the early 1990s was on occasion referred to as the “Great
Recession.” The term was especially used to describe the situation in Connecticut.
• Some referred to the recessions of the 1980s as the Great Recession.
• Forbes proclaimed “the Great Recession of 1979″ in an issue dated Nov. 26,
1979.
• Before that, Forbes had proclaimed 1974-75 as the “Great Recession.” So did
Newsweek, and so did this New York Times column.

And so on.

Why does this term keep cropping up, downturn after downturn? It does seem strange,
after all, that experts keep portending “The Great Recession” for recessions that in
retrospect might seem somewhat mild (or even nonexistent, according to the official
Business Cycle Dating Committee).

Perhaps “Great Recession” claims return periodically because the term is vaguely punny,
and people just like to appreciate a clever turn of phrase. Or perhaps its regular revivals
have something to do with a near-eschatological desire to witness a downturn of epic,
historical proportions. After all, as long as we’re suffering, we might as well brand the
suffering so it’ll sound more impressive to our grandchildren.

None of this is to say, of course, that the current downturn won’t rightfully earn the title
of “Great Recession” — only that the prior, relatively lax uses of the designation seem to
dilute its fearsomeness.

Addendum: I’m not clear on when “The Great Depression” became officially known as
“The Great Depression,” or even just a “depression.” In 1930, the economist John
Maynard Keynes famously referred to it as “The Great Slump of 1930,” so it’s a wonder
that label didn’t stick. The Oxford English Dictionary’s quotations section for the entry
on the term “depression” includes the following chronology:

1934 A. HUXLEY Beyond Mexique Bay 233 Since the depression, books on Mexico
have been almost as numerous..as books on Russia. 1935 ‘J. GUTHRIE’ Little Country
xiii. 212 ‘I thought you had a baby.’ ‘No, darling,’ said Carol. ‘None of us are having
them now. It’s the depression.’ 1935 Punch 19 June 719/1 All the wireless sets in Little
Wobbly are pre-depression models. 1957 M. SHARP Eye of Love iii. 39 It was the
Depression that had finished him off.

Feel free to share any information on the popularizing of the term “The Great
Depression” (or, for that matter, “The Great Recession”) in the