When “gross” in GNP stands for unseemly

It is unfortunate that despite years of recession across the world, belt-tightening has remained a largely metaphorical economic term while personal expansion plans made unhindered progress worldwide. Perhaps in the past, too much weight was put on individual efforts rather than on concerted official measures to shed flab. In that context, the new interpretation of the term "gross national product" appears to be finally gaining ground, at least in the land where English originated. And it may eventually help alter the present contours of that country. By writing to both houses of parliament asking members to shape up, a concerned former surgeon general of Britain has obviously decided to consider the all-important first word of the phrase - gross - as a pejorative adjective, an unacceptable descriptor for the health of a nation. So, Bhutan is not the only kingdom that can give old economic terms an imaginative twist.

That ministers have approved his writing to all parliamentarians to check that their waistline measures less than half their height indicates that a more decisive battle of the bulge could begin at Westminster. But a country that persists with a currency called " pound" can hardly expect to easily convince the rest of its nationals that excess pounds of another kind are unacceptable.