Tax Lawyer's Blog

This one’s not a tax post, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Especially so for a bardolater.

The Orlando Sentinel reports today,

The term shylock wold be stripped from state laws under a bill that’s going to Governor Charlie Crist. 

Shylock is the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

He is hated by the Christian merchants in the play presumably because he loans money at high interest.

Antonio, the rich Merchant of Venice, reluctantly borrows money from Shylock to help his friend, Bassanio, court Portia, a lady of nobility.

Shylock demands no interest from Antonio, but playfully suggests that if Antonio fails to repay him at the appointed hour, Shylock will have the right to cut off a pound of his flesh from any part of his body.

Antonio, confident in his ability to repay Shylock and believing that Shylock would never seriously lay claim to a pound of his flesh, agrees to the terms.

Shylock is a villain, to be sure, but he is also a victim.

Antonio, we learn, has many times in public called Shylock a cur and a usurer and has even spit on his “Jewish gaberdine.”

So Shylock wants revenge:

If I can catch him once upon the hip,
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation, and he rails,
Even there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest.

And so the term shylock, like so many of Shakespeare’s coinages, has become part of our everyday language.

A Shylock, then, is one who loansharks or charges excessive interest for the use of money.

I suspect few people who use the word shylock are aware of its origin.

And fewer still are aware of it’s anti-semitic connotations.

[Shylock has] been in the state’s usury laws since 1969, referring to penalties for loan sharks. The Anti-Defamation League in Boca Raton said the term “perpetuates the stereotypes of the evil Jew as powerful, cunning, money-hungry and inhuman. 

I’m cool with the change, but I hope the PC crowd doesn’t now start aiming its sharpened scissors at Shakespeare’s plays.

Here’s the relevant parts of the offending statute before the change:

687.071 Criminal usury, loan sharking; shylocking.

(1) DEFINITIONS.–The following words and phrases, as used in this section, shall have the following meanings:  

f) “Loan shark” or “shylock” means any person as defined herein who lends money unlawfully under subsection (2), subsection (3), or subsection (4).

(g) “Loan sharking” or “shylocking” means the act of any person as defined herein lending money unlawfully under subsection (2), subsection (3), or subsection (4).

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