Where the word "bank" comes from — and "bankrupt"
The first bankers worked on a wooden bench in the market square. When they went broke, their bench was broken. Two of today's words preserve the story.
In medieval Italy, money changers sat in the square at a long wooden bench — banca. There they weighed coins, exchanged currencies and kept merchants' gold. From that wooden bench comes today's word "bank".
The broken bench
If a changer could no longer pay his debts, people broke his bench — banca rotta, "the broken bench". From this comes the word "bankrupt". A powerful image: lost trust was made physical, in the broken wood.
In Kosron Bank
In the Kosron Bank game you learn exactly what those first bankers did: you hold deposits, give loans, calculate interest. Except it's all simulated, with KOSR — your wooden bench can never really break.
