Wordie: Tontine: Comments

Comment by oroboros, 4 months ago

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:25:32 +0000

tONtinE

Comment by dontcry, 4 months ago

Fri, 02 May 2008 11:51:23 +0000

Probably gave rise to the term "green-back stabber."

Comment by frindley, 4 months ago

Fri, 02 May 2008 07:56:12 +0000

"…a macabre form of investment, popular in Europe and America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which the amount you got back depended on how many of your fellow-investors you outlived."
Michael Kinsley in The New Yorker

Comment by oroboros, 11 months ago

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 18:49:31 +0000

Pronounced: "TAHN-TEEN."

"A system of annuities in which the benefits pass to the surviving subscribers until only one is left."

I saw this first referenced on an old M*A*S*H episode when Col. Potter received a well-traveled bottle of brandy as the last surviving member of his World War One platoon. I believe Major Winchester used the phrase to add some pompous color to the scene to which Col. Potter nodded his rapidly aging head and remarked, "Give that man a charoot."

JC Sears (on MyFavoriteWord.com)

Comment by seanahan, about 1 year ago

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 08:10:23 +0000

Or to many of us, the plot entered into by Mr. Burns and Grandpa during WWII.

Comment by angharad, about 1 year ago

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 01:04:01 +0000

Popularly, in mystery plots, a sort of group-will scheme by which the last surviving member inherits all.