In some societies – Trachtman (1999) cites the US as an example – an individual’s personal finances can be a touchy topic for informal conversation. The price of one’s property, one’s bank balance, one’s salary, or the amount one paid for some expensive­looking item are often off the table as discussion topics with acquaint­ances, friends, perhaps even family members, except in broad terms. One’s debts, mortgage, credit­card vexations and other indices of financial hardship may like­wise be tiptoed around. From a standpoint of language as socially normative, there appear to be a set of pre­existing social norms which inform whether and in what contexts personal finance is an appropriate topic for informal conversation, though there is of course variation between or even within societies.