By Betty Kirkpatrick
The world of finance is never far from the headlines these days. Mostly this makes depressing reading, emphasising just how bad our financial situation is or is likely to be. The headlines about a rogue trader, then, came almost as light relief.
Firstly, his rogue trading, or the making of unauthorised trades as this apparently means, did not directly affect many of us personally, as far as we knew. Secondly, the whole thing had a ring of fantasy about it, especially given the huge sums of money involved.
Many of us will have been aware of the term rogue trader and its connection with the financial world before the present case occurred. The term hit the headlines in the mid 1990s when the exploits of famous rogue trader Nick Leeson bankrupted Barings Bank. Before that, I suspect that many of us would have considered a rogue trader to be someone who sold dodgy goods or falsely pretended to be a qualified tradesman, with disastrous results.
The word rogue came into use around the middle of the 16th century. Originally it was a slang term for a vagrant or vagabond. These were often considered to have criminal ways and the word rogue was later adopted by the English legal system.
The derivation of the word is unknown, although various suggestions have been made. One proposed derivation connects the word rogue with a slang term roger current at the time. This was used to refer to a beggar who pretended to be a poor university student at Oxford or Cambridge, struggling to make ends meet, in order to gain sympathy from passers-by and extract some money from them. Since this particular roger appears to have been pronounced along the lines of today’s roguery, rather than being pronounced like the male first name, then this seems quite plausible. Roger in this sense may be derived from Latin rogare, to ask.
Another suggested derivation of rogue connects the word with French rogue meaning arrogant or proud. This, in turn, may be connected with the Breton Celtic word rok, also meaning proud.
There is a degree of ambiguity in our attitude to the word rogue. When the word appears in the term rogues’ gallery it is definitely used to signify a villain since this refers to a set of photographs of known criminals that the police show to witnesses of crimes for possible identification. Rogue stays in the company of miscreants when it appears in the expression rogue elephant, this being rather a vicious creature which lives alone apart from the herd whose members will not tolerate the rogue’s behaviour.
Often, however, we use the word rogue for someone for whom we have a sneaking liking, even though he or she may have broken the law or the moral code. Their charm and roguish smile may blind us to the worst of their faults.
Some of us may also have a sneaking regard for rogue traders. There are certainly those among us who like to hear about audacious escapades that seem to cock a snook at authority. Those of you who were alive and kicking in 1963 will remember that admiration was expressed in some quarters for those involved in the Great Train Robbery. This was despite the fact that some of the robbers hit the poor train driver over the head, greatly injuring him.
Betty Kirkpatrick is the former editor of several classic reference books, including Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus. She is also the author of several smaller language reference books, including The Usual Suspects and Other Clichés published by Bloomsbury, and a series of Scots titles, including Scottish Words and Phrases, Scottish Quotations, and Great Scots, published by Crombie Jardine.
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