The Meaning of Headlines: 'perfect storm'

The Meaning of Headlines: 'perfect storm' - business

The Business section of The Telegraph published an article on 29 March 2016 with the headline: ‘A ‘perfect storm’ is brewing ove the most important part of the UK economy.’ What does a ‘perfect storm’ mean? How can a storm be perfect?

Oxford Dictionaries defines ‘perfect storm’ as ‘a particularly violent storm arising from a rare combination of adverse meteorological factors’ or ‘an especially bad situation caused by a combination of unfavourable circumstances.’ Collins Dictionaries defines ‘perfect storm’ as ‘a combination of events which are not individually dangerous, but occurring together produce a disastrous outcome.’ Either way, meteorologically or otherwise, it sounds bad.

The key word in the definitions is ‘combination’ – a combination of events that, when taken together, produce a disaster.

The article commences with the sentence: ‘a ‘’perfect storm’’ of fears over the state of the world economy, Britain’s place in the EU, and market volatility is gathering over Britain’s dominant financial services sector, according to a new survey.’ The second sentence adds that: ‘banks and investment firms have reported the sharpest deterioration in their outlook in over four years in a survey of 104 firms carried out by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and accountants PwC.’

Immediately, the article has: (1) stated what the combination of events are – emphasising a perfect storm of fears, and (2) stated the disaster attributed to the combination of events – a deteriorating economy. In fact, it is the sharpest deterioration in over four years!

The article adds that only 14% of financial firms are optimistic about their business this year compared to last year, and 35% said they were pessimistic, ‘marking the first drop in business sentiment since 2012.’ There is an upside though – the survey noted that profits were healthy, hiring levels were steady, and business volumes were growing. It was the ‘looming political events combined with financial uncertainty emanating from Europe and China’ that ‘had dampenend the outlook for the sector.’ There’s the word – combined.

The article discusses the adverse events, and concludes by stating that the world’s biggest investment banks ‘have been caught in the eye of an investor storm following the introduction of negative interest rates in the eurozone and Japan. This has provoked jitters that the profitability of commercial lenders will slowly be eroded …’

Scorecard for The Telegraph headline is 100%. Not only has the article emphasised a perfect storm of fears, it also concluded with an investor storm. The article clearly recognised that the critical component in a ‘perfect storm’ was the combination of adverse events. This (unfavourable circumstance) combined with that (unfavourable circumstance) and with those (unfavourable circumstances) lead to … a bad situation, a disastrous outcome, a perfect storm of fears.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/25/a-perfect-storm-is-brewing-over-the-most-important-part-of-the-u/

MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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