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Dictionary Corner

Dictionary Corner normally likes to focus on the kind of nascent jargon that hasn't made it into the Oxford English Dictionary just yet, but today let's run through some business and technology-related terms that have finally been given their rightful place in the OED's March update.

First up, we have "ego-surfing", which is when people Google their own name. It is, in fact, a phrase that entered the language in 1995 – before Google itself existed.

Stuck for a term to describe the fate of lesser search engines? Try "dot bomb", the now OED-approved noun for failed dotcoms.

Finally, the "non-doms" have found a home to call their own in the dictionary's hallowed pages. Just in case you've missed it, "non-dom" is short for non-domiciled, and refers to "a person living in a country in which he or she is not legally domiciled, usually in order to accrue tax advantages".

Court Date

Many will have seen it coming, but there's been a twist in the tale of Google's eBooks platform after a US court blocked an agreement between Google and publishers on the web company's publication of books online. In a deal negotiated with publishers to settle copyright infringement claims, Google had agreed to pay $125 million in royalties every year to the copyright owners of scanned books.

A New York court said the deal would "simply go too far", especially as many of the works scanned by Google were "orphan works" – books that conveniently had no recognised copyright owner and therefore no one for Google to pay.

"The [deal] would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in the wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission," said the judge. Google said the ruling was "disappointing". This story isn't over yet, is it?

STATUS UPDATE: New New Look:The chief executive and chairman of women's fashion chain New Look have resigned a couple of months after the company announced a 9 per cent tumble in sales.

Pod people:"Nespresso once again grew its leadership by delighting those with a passion for the best coffee," says the press release. Translated: sales surged 32 per cent in Britain and Ireland last year.

Budget box:George Osborne held aloft a spanking new red budget briefcase, as the 150-year-old one first used by William Gladstone was retired. But will he get the chance to wear it in?

€125m

- Loss in euro incurred by Manchester United’s parent company, Red Football Joint Venture, in the year to July 2010.

The question:Will Japan's economy recover from the earthquake and tsunami disaster?

The Japanese government has given its first official estimates of the cost of the direct damage caused by the massive earthquake and its terrible aftermath. It ranges from €139 billion to €219 billion, making it the world’s costliest natural disaster. At the upper end of this scale, some 6 per cent could be knocked off Japan’s GDP.

The cost of the damage to roads, homes, factories and other infrastructure could rise even higher, however, as the estimate does not include losses in economic activity from planned power outages – likely to be significant – or the impact of the crisis at the stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima.

The Bank of Japan has no doubts. The earthquake will have a “severe” effect on Japanese economic activity and output, while the impact may be “prolonged” and bigger than that of the Kobe earthquake 16 years ago.

Some economists, meanwhile, note that the impact of large disasters on GDP is usually confined to the month or quarter in which they occur. “In the longer term, disasters actually tend to bring a larger growth, rather than a smaller growth, because of the reconstruction demand for infrastructure and replacement demand for consumer durables,” Société Générale told Reuters last week.

It did add that the main risk to this trough-spike scenario was those prolonged shortages of power.

No matter how wise one is, it is not possible to say the debt will be unsustainable next week, next month, next year or in three years’ time

Minister for Finance Michael Noonanisn't giving any Lenihan- style hostages to fortune.