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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 162. The noun phrase today is

  • Black Swan or we sometimes we say a Black Swan event. Okay. Let's take a look

  • at the note here. Often when we hear someone talk about a Black Swan,

  • especially in business or investment news networks, they are usually referring

  • to a Black Swan event. Okay. A Black Swan event is one in which it is very

  • unpredictable that seems to come out of nowhere and has a very severe

  • consequence. A Black Swan could also have the meaning of something rare or very

  • rare. The origin of the phrase dates back to the second century. It comes from the

  • Roman poet named Juvenal who was trying to characterize something being rare.

  • Here is the actual quote "Rara avis in Terris Negro que similia cyngo. " Okay.

  • That was in Latin. This translated to " A rare bird in the lands and very much

  • like a Black Swan.' Ironically, at this time most people believed there was no

  • such thing as a Black Swan because all previous records recorded swans

  • as white. So nobody had ever seen a Black Swan or at least not in Rome anyway. Even

  • up to the 16th century, this quote was used to state that something was

  • impossible. So it was used because everybody believed there was no such

  • thing as a black swan. Okay. Let's continue. Okay. Good.

  • However in the year 1697 , Dutch explorer, William de

  • Vlamingh. I don't know. Documented seeing black swans in Western Australia.

  • So there is actually a species of black swans that do come from Australia. The

  • term then came to mean that something believed to be impossible might be

  • disproven in the future. Yeah. It's kind of an ironic turn. All right. Let's continue. The

  • term Black Swan event came about due to author Nasim Nicholas Taleb in his book

  • "Fooled by Randomness" in 2001. In 2007 he popularized the term more in his book

  • called "The Black Swan. " The same name. Now the term is used to refer to any

  • unpredictable event that has a high impact and is rationalized about later.

  • Okay. Let's continue. All right. Now and we just have a couple of examples here.

  • Example number one. Yeah. Some economists fear that the corona virus

  • could be the black swan that crashes the world's financial system. Yeah . A number of

  • people have predicted a crash of the world's financial system like ever since

  • 2008 . Because the world is filled with way too much debt, but they said that you know it

  • probably wouldn't be something that you kind of see because you know probably

  • central banks and politicians will try to do something to stop that. What we

  • really bring it down is something that's by surprise. Some Black Swan that they

  • don't see coming and it just makes the whole thing collapse. So that's what

  • they've often talked about. So you often hear of the Black Swan used in that way.

  • And let's just give the second example here. Yeah. Nasim Nicholas Taleb you know,

  • the guy that wrote the book gives examples of black swans such as 9/11 or

  • the 9/11 attacks. You know, because that would have been maybe not so predictable.

  • The collapse of the Soviet Union, World War 1 etc. So

  • these are ones where he's saying were you know something could just come up

  • out of nowhere. You don't expect it. It coud have a great impact and that's

  • why they said you know , even one that you forecast ... you can never know if some

  • Black Swan could come out of nowhere and change everything. Okay. Anyway, I hope you

  • got it. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time.

  • Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 162. The noun phrase today is

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英語導師Nick P名詞短語(162)黑天鵝或黑天鵝事件--由來 (English Tutor Nick P Noun Phrase (162) Black Swan or Black Swan Event - Origin)

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    anitawu12 posted on 2021/01/14
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