Gain currency

Reader question: What does this sentence – Reports concerning bad government affairs often gain currency in foreign press – mean, especially “gain currency”?

My comments: It means that foreign media enjoy talking bad about the government.

“Currency” has nothing to do with, well, money. Here it means popularity. For reports, or ideas and principles for that matter, to gain currency is for them to get widespread.

Think of money though, and water as currency is definitely related to current, as in water current. With enough water, currents form in a river. Currency, on the other hand, is money that circulates. There has to be a lot of people using it for a type of money to become a currency, hence the meaning of something gaining currency as gaining popularity. The US dollar, for instance, has long been a world currency, in fact known as THE hard currency. Lately, however, the Japanese yen and increasingly the euro have gained currency (become more popular), as the American greenback loses value. Even the Chinese yuan has gained currency (having been accepted ever more widely), especially in Southeast Asia and the Far East.

Anyways, just remember currency as something that circulates – has to be something great in number of course. If it gains currency, it gathers momentum, becoming widely accepted, used, favored, etc.

Here are recent media examples:

1. The controversial scheme whereby clubs would play an additional match overseas each season, was met with widespread opposition earlier this year, but recently the Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, claimed that the idea was gaining currency at home and abroad.

But Ferguson boss believes the fixture would impact on what is already a heavily congested schedule for United.

“I don't think there will ever be a 39th game and I don't believe there should be,” said Ferguson.

“I certainly am not in favour of it. “

You look at our domestic programme allied to our cup competitions. It is impossible.”

- Ferguson opposes 39th game, WorldSoccer.com, December 16, 2008.

2. Mention a corporate bailout in the nation's capital these days and chances are someone will offer a harsh condition to go along with it. Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Lately, the term “prepackaged bankruptcy” has been gaining currency in the halls of Congress as lawmakers struggle with pleas for help from the auto industry.

The idea, embraced by some Democrats and Republicans, would extend taxpayer help in exchange for a company undergoing an accelerated Chapter 11 reorganization. The arrangement could represent a model, or a deterrent, for any other strapped companies considering seeking government help.

3. Prudently, too, the government itself avoids pushing the idea of a “Beijing consensus” as an alternative to Western capitalism. It is fearful of accusations that it harbours plans to challenge American power and change the world order. It was actually an American, Joshua Cooper Ramo, who helped the phrase gain currency in 2004 with the publication of an enthusiastic pamphlet for the Foreign Policy Centre, a British think-tank. “What is happening in China at the moment”, Mr Ramo wrote, “is not only a model for China, but has begun to remake the whole landscape of international development, economics, society and, by extension, politics.” - China's reforms: The second Long March, The Economist, December 11, 2008.