As you may have heard, Goldman Sachs has “banned the use of profanity” in emails. Some are heralding the move as the end of Goldman, where describing the various ways in which clients are screwed (I kid the Sachsians) is part of the daily grind. And at another bank, staffed by unimaginitive fucks* whose lack of creativity is bested only by their mediocre grasp of the English language, this would be a paralyzing edict. At Goldman Sachs, it’s a mere challenge.

No longer will a trader be able to lazily fire off an note describing something as, for instance, “shitty.” Now he’ll have to think outside the box. What kind of deal was that? Was it “a deal so unappealing” you “wouldn’t bang it with Viniar’s yonce”? Was it a deal wouldn’t dip your wick in? Perhaps an effluent deal? Or maybe it was RB-esque? See, it’s not that hard, and actually kind of fun. Now you try.

*Don’t be jealous.

Comments (57)

  1. Posted by american bandersnatch | July 29, 2010 at 10:06 AM

    Hindenburgesque

  2. Posted by Fr. Britt | July 29, 2010 at 10:09 AM

    “Apollo13esque?” Not going to kill ya necessarily but it will certainly not be viewed as a success.

  3. Posted by NakedShort | July 29, 2010 at 10:11 AM

    How about I’ve seen coat hanger abortions cleaner than this deal?

  4. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:11 AM

    I don’t see what the big deal is. I thought the “shitty-ness” of deals was just implied?

    -Lehman Quant

  5. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:12 AM

    UBesque

  6. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:12 AM

    UBS absorbs

  7. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:13 AM

    HMS Investigator was a merchant ship purchased in 1848 to search for Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition. She made two voyages to the Arctic and had to be abandoned in 1853 after becoming trapped in the ice. Her wreckage was found in July 2010 on Banks Island, in the Beaufort Sea. She was the fourth ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name.

  8. Posted by King Capital | July 29, 2010 at 10:14 AM

    a “Barney Frank” – looks harmless like your grandpa but will rape your ass with the ferocity of a cornered badger

  9. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:15 AM

    @3 Good stuff, I think if Goldman really wants to innovate they should pick a theme of the day and all emails must try to comply with said theme, much like the memes on Dealbreaker. Now leaving it all up to Lloyd could get a bit taxing on the guy so they should probably have a rotaion around the C suite. I would just love to see LvPs treatment of the russian reversal.

  10. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:21 AM

    CFA Level I Candidate-esque

  11. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:22 AM

    Why does every picture of Lloyd look like he just emerged from Barney Frank’s anus?

  12. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:26 AM

    @11

    That’s impossible, Barney his is own head up there.

  13. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:27 AM

    Dykstran

  14. Posted by CoveredLong | July 29, 2010 at 10:27 AM

    We’re back at the hot tub to finalize the tranches, update the model, and realize we’ve got greneds, wowwwww.

    -The Situation

  15. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:27 AM

    This deal is like a blind date who wants to meet you at Minetta’s Tavern. Oh motherfucking shit I forgot we can’t reference that anymore.

  16. Posted by Analyst | July 29, 2010 at 10:31 AM

    I suggest binary — fuck that shit = 01100110011101010110001101101011001000000111010001101000011000010111010000100000011100110110100001101001011101000000110100001010

    http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp

  17. Posted by NakedShort | July 29, 2010 at 10:36 AM

    How about Bill Gross’ sloppy beer poops smell better than this deal?

  18. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:42 AM

    Nice to see a post on this site pre-lunch Bess, keep up the good work.

  19. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:46 AM

    This deal is on the express train to Minetta.

  20. Posted by NakedShort | July 29, 2010 at 10:47 AM

    How about Zack Kouwe’s jounalistic standards are more ethical than this deal?

  21. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:47 AM

    “And last year, J.P. Morgan had to briefly override its automated profanity detectors so it could write a press release that mentioned a charity called Feel Your Boobies Foundation. That is the name of a Pennsylvania breast-cancer prevention group, which got a grant from the bank.”

    Ooooh yeah!

  22. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:49 AM

    Indulgences

  23. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:49 AM

    We shall call it, The Human Fund.

  24. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:50 AM

    This deal is going to be as successful as Obama.

  25. Posted by NakedShort | July 29, 2010 at 10:55 AM

    This deal is less about finance than a culture of malice. Like porn, this deal caters to my baser instincts. Something about this deal exacervates the natural tendency of deal making discourse to be mean-spirited. Zero sum counter party issues or something. It’s simply repellant and there’s nothing at all to excuse the conduct that put this deal together and it isn’t excused by the malicious tenor of my MD and press releases of van Praag. This deal is a blip; guys like us represent pervasive tendency of investment banking to worsen human misery.

  26. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:55 AM

    If this deal were a profanity, it’d be “shit.” Wait, what?

  27. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:57 AM

    01001111011011100110010100100000011101000110100101101101011001010010110000100000011000010111010000100000010011010110100101101110011001010111010001110100011000010010011101110011001011100010111000101110

  28. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:58 AM

    More like The Fecal Fund.

    B. Gross

  29. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 10:59 AM

    If this deal were a joke, it’d be a Russian Reversal.

  30. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 11:01 AM

    In Soviet Russia, jokes reverse you!

  31. Posted by Louis Winthorpe III | July 29, 2010 at 11:04 AM

    This deal is such a piece of Kouwe.

  32. Posted by FKA LA | July 29, 2010 at 11:07 AM

    18,

    That’s so piper jaffrey of you.

  33. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 11:10 AM

    Why is everyone so scared of referencing Minetta’s? I highly enjoy it.

  34. Posted by John | July 29, 2010 at 11:10 AM

    On my first interview with the firm, I was a boy of but eight years old. I was playing backgammon and recreating images of things yet to pass when mother stepped into the room. She informed me that a man was here to speak with me concerning ‘a very special place.’ In stepped a tan, handsome gentleman with dark features wearing a fine grey suit and an Ironman watch (a real MD-type of guy, in retrospect). He wordlessly sat down across the table from me and began removing a series of seemingly random objects from a leather physician’s bag.

    Arrayed before me were, in no particular order, an old comic book, a knife, a vial of ash, a baseball glove, and an old book of laws. He stared into my eyes for what seemed an eternity (mother later informed me it was no more than three seconds), and I rather cooly stared right back.

    ‘John,’ he said, breaking the silence, ‘which of these objects belong to you?’

    ‘To keep?’ I asked, looking for some clarificaton on the issue.

    ‘No, John. Which of these objects belong to you already?’ he said, emphasizing the temporal aspect of the question.

    Knowing I had only 30 seconds to answer, I quickly surveyed the pieces and selected the compass and vial of ash. ‘A guide and a momento mori,’ I thought. I briefly considered the knife but instead selected the baseball glove. ‘My balls are about the size of the one’s that go into this,’ I explained.

    My nameless acquaintance seemed pleased with the selections, and asked my mother if I was available next week to talk again. “No problem’ she said, and he exited as quickly as he had come in.

  35. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 11:11 AM

    Mr. Carlin would not be happy. “shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.”

  36. Posted by FKA LA | July 29, 2010 at 11:14 AM

    34 – more, please.

  37. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 11:18 AM

    A superstar prop trader at Goldman Sachs went to a strategy meeting hosted by LLoyd Blankfein. Afterward he stopped to shake the LLoyd’s hand . He said ‘Lloyd, I’ll tell you, that was a damned fine strategy presentation. Damned good!’ Lloyd said, ‘Thank you, but I’d rather you didn’t use profanity.’ The superstar prop trader said, ‘I was so fucking impressed with that strategy talk that I will probably be able book close to five billion dollars this quarter !’ Lloyd says, ‘No shit?’

  38. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 11:21 AM

    @35 would have been good but no mention of compass in the lead-in

  39. Posted by guest | July 29, 2010 at 11:30 AM

    @3 made me spit my morning bourbon.

  40. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 11:34 AM

    How do you get 4 Goldman Sachs lawyers to say “Fuck!” at the same time? Have a fifth say, “Fabrice Tourre’s lawyer is on line 1…”

  41. Posted by Anal_yst | July 29, 2010 at 11:36 AM

    This sort of thing happens all the time @ Citi, its no big deal

  42. Posted by Lucy van Pelt | July 29, 2010 at 11:37 AM

    @34 the watch was a nice touch.

  43. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 11:47 AM

    That deal was about as fundamentally sound as that client’s yacht is anything but imaginary.

  44. Posted by guest | July 29, 2010 at 11:50 AM

    sensy deals

  45. Posted by OptionsTrader | July 29, 2010 at 11:56 AM

    In other news I just longed the CHF overnight. I’m literally a hundred thousandaire. I’m booking a ticket to NY to party, who wants to meet me at 40/40?

  46. Posted by Texashedge | July 29, 2010 at 12:09 PM

    @34, you sir are a commenter savant

  47. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 12:33 PM

    Instead of @#$*^@#&, how about ‘that is so Bear’ or ‘that is so Lehman’

  48. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 12:43 PM

    @45 How about Minetta’s?

  49. Posted by pmco | July 29, 2010 at 12:57 PM

    That deal was a meme
    Gal who is a trader but loves Bess no less when she refers to traders as “he”

  50. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 1:07 PM

    @34- Stellar, except the momento mori part. We’re talking about Goldman, lest you forget.

  51. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 1:15 PM

    @27, you are playing with fire there… It’s a wonder Bess didn’t delete your comment.

    Guy who tolerates Minetta jokes and hopes Bess tolerates him (just this one time)

  52. Posted by ChicagoChick | July 29, 2010 at 1:59 PM

    Oh O O @03

    How about Knealish? As stack as a carruso-caberro (who she do what to to keep the terrible job she does?)

  53. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 2:10 PM

    It’s a Citi deal?

    It’s universal fact Citi is shitty.

  54. Posted by PermaGuest | July 29, 2010 at 2:32 PM

    Fecaloid?

  55. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 5:17 PM

    This is one merdey deal

  56. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 8:12 PM

    I just got Assnessed on that trade

  57. Posted by Anonymous | July 29, 2010 at 8:38 PM

    how about “That was a deal that put our clients first”

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