My Wall Street reporter self of 1987-1990 is amazed to hear politicians and the news media throw the word “equity” around as though everyone knows what it means. A generation ago, corporate raiders seized equity stakes in target companies, and we financial scribes checked how equities were performing vis-à-vis bonds to see if they were flashing economic signals.

Today, “equity” is used to mean something utterly different. An NPR story on March 8 opened, “President Biden marked International Women’s Day on Monday by signing two executive orders geared toward promoting gender equity …” NPR’s phrasing was essentially identical to many others. Everyone is doing it.