"Implode-O-Meter" now a standard in mortgage glossary

Subprime was voted the word of the year by the American Dialect Society in recognition of the mortgage scandal and crisis that has for months enveloped housing and real estate around the United States. But that umbrella term, describing cheap - often suspiciously cheap - mortgages, encompasses a whole glossary of often-colorful expressions that could be described as sub subprime. They reflect the deceit, cynicism and scandalous exploitation that are taking the homes of many thousands, perhaps millions, of families.

Some other words, words that betoken possible rescue and relief, are also entering the vocabulary.