A few accountants have started to introduce ‘unwind’ as accounting jargon in annual reports. And they are being selective. It is exclusively ‘wind’ with the ‘un’ attached. I guess wind in the positive would cause some confusion with a breeze.
Moreover, you should not confuse this unwinding, with the unwinding after a hard day at work drinking a scotch sprawled out on the sofa in front of the television to unwind their frazzled nerves. Perhaps they are gardener accountants unwinding the hosepipe to water the plants or wash the car, leaving it littering the garden, never it winding it up again.
They never wind up anything either in the annual reports, they only unwind, as in ‘discount unwind’. Unwinding fare value is popular as in the ‘unwind of inventory fair value’. But more or less anything can be unwound. I also found an ‘unwind of deferred tax liabilities, and this rather extraordinary ‘probability of Technical/Regulatory Success unwind’. (I will not reveal the name of the company involved.)
I wondered too what this new unwind could mean. Two simpler words came to mind: release and reversal or I could have chosen: unravel or unreel. This would give ‘discount unravel’ or ‘fair value unreel’. That sounds better does it not?
