Accountants Secret Language

Researchers in the Square Mile have been studying what has been described as the "secret language" of Accountants.

They have been monitoring communications between the number crunchers that cannot be heard by human ears.

The accountant's numeric drivel will be familiar to most people, but they also emit growls.

Their growls, however, are only partly audible; two-thirds of the call is at frequencies that are too low to be picked up by our hearing.

To learn more about the inaudible part of the growl, the team attached a microphone sensitive to these low frequencies and a GPS tracking system to eight of their Porsches.

The researchers could then correlate the noises they were making with what they were doing.

Matt Anderson, who led the project, told BBC News: "We're excited to learn of the hierarchy within the financial world and how they interact and intercede with one another."

Predator warning?

The team has already learned that accountants use this low frequency communication to announce to the rest of their herd that they are about to invoice a client.


"This we believe is to announce to the rest of the herd that the champagne should be put on ice imminently," said Dr Anderson.

The researchers believe that this also warns the accountants to look out for bonuses.

"You may think that charging £300 pounds per hour, would not be as open to predation as other species," he says. "But packs of hyenas are a big threat in the city."

Dr Anderson and his team are continuing to analyse data in order to learn more about this secret accountant language.





Slightly edited from a BBC story about elephants!