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Sometimes It Is a Thingumajig

THE No. 1 worry of U.S. businessmen is a "recession." But the strange fact is that nobody seems to know exactly what a recession is. The word is as hard to define as love.

One trouble is that such expressions as "depression" and "recession" have become bad words, particularly among politicians, and are never to be used if a nicer word can be found. Thus, a whole new vocabulary has evolved. In the new jargon, a recession can be a "rolling readjustment," a "correction," a "slippage," an "easing," a "mild dip," a "downswing," a "normal adjustment," a "leveling...