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Dipsik Posted 15 years ago
Vocabulary
Oddly fungible titles?
Hello,
I'm translating an article from the Washington Post, and got stuck on the word "fungible".
Here is the whole paragraph:
It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.
Does the word "fungible" here mean that one could easily get the titles mixed up, or that the people on such posts are easily replaceable (like, they do similar work so they could quite well do the job of each other)?
Plus, could you give me a few hints as to what the job of a policy analyst etc. involves?
Many thanks for any help
Lenny
I'm translating an article from the Washington Post, and got stuck on the word "fungible".
Here is the whole paragraph:
It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.
Does the word "fungible" here mean that one could easily get the titles mixed up, or that the people on such posts are easily replaceable (like, they do similar work so they could quite well do the job of each other)?
Plus, could you give me a few hints as to what the job of a policy analyst etc. involves?
Many thanks for any help
Lenny
Top answer
e. it wouldn't much matter which title you applied. The sentiment is slightly dismissive.
- e.
- it wouldn't much matter which title you applied.
- The sentiment is slightly dismissive.
- A policy analyst would probably look into the implications and costs of proposed policies and summarise their findings in a report of some kind.
- All the best, MrP
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1 Answers
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I would say "interchangeable", i.e. it wouldn't much matter which title you applied. The sentiment is slightly dismissive.
A policy analyst would probably look into the implications and costs of proposed policies and summarise their findings in a report of some kind.
All the best,
MrP
A policy analyst would probably look into the implications and costs of proposed policies and summarise their findings in a report of some kind.
All the best,
MrP
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