Bank to basics

While at my bi-annual trip to the ATM this week, I was interrupted by a young man, about thirteen years old. He politely asked me, “If I want to take money out of the account on this card…” He gestured to his keycard, “…do I need to press deposit or withdraw?”

For a moment I was amused. Then I thought about it.

The terms ‘deposit’ and ‘withdraw’ are not intuitive if you’ve never had a bank account before.

As an adult you can retrofit the etymology for these words and they seem coherent, then eventually basic. But they’re not words that you use in regular conversation or hear that much as a teen.

These words only become invisible and normal once you have to start paying your own bills.

It was a small reminder of how much we learn language by context and exposure, not dictionaries.

I told him to use the withdraw button and hoped he’d memorised his PIN.