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Comment by tgb | Hacker News Reader

Any idea where this awkward phrase came from? I can't find any history of its origin.

One of the more archaic meanings of "concern" is a business. It was a common term up until the early 20th century. Remember that prior to that time, corporations were much more difficult to form, and a "company" was usually referring to specific entities vs. the more typical partnerships and other entities.

A "going concern" is a business that is operating and making a profit. A "going concern warning" is a term of art that implies that a company's situation (usually fiscal) is such that it may need to stop operating. In other, smaller, contexts disasters like a loss of key staff trigger that kind of warning.

Still is in German, btw: "Konzern", meaning a conglomerate or holding group, basically.

Bottom line, as you say: "Going concern" = "viable business"

It's an accounting term, that's relatively recent (~500 years). It's literally a "concern" about the company's ability to "go" on. A going concern. It could also reference the concerns that are ongoing - namely operational concerns - that need to be addressed.

For more about the history of the field of accounting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Pacioli

Source: Am CPA

I still don't understand: wouldn't "going concern" if it had that origin mean the opposite - i.e. that it was going to fail soon? I would naively say it's "without a going concern" for a stable business.

So "concern" is something that matters to someone. Here, a business.

And "going" means that it can keep going, that it won't stop because of some failure or limitation.

English has changed a lot over the centuries.

I, um, don't mean that as a snarky comment or anything; it really is in a lot of ways the best explanation. It's weird and fascinating how words slowly shift over time and how ever though "go" or "concern" never necessarily quite "changed their meaning", it still sometimes wanders a little bit and over the course of centuries it can add up to a surprising amount. Phrases sometimes can get "stuck" and survive past their constituent words having their meanings shift away.

No, it's not a "concern" in the sense of "worries".

It's a concern in the sense of "commercial enterprise, entity".

Similarly, it's not "going" in the sense of "leaving" or "going out of business", but "going" as in "ongoing, viable".

So, "going concern" is not a negative thing, meaning "bankruptcy worries" or so, but a positive thing, meaning "viable enterprise".

(Note: not replying to you specifically, but the whole sub-thread :-)

This person is correct. -CPA

Not a CPA, but I believe this is incorrect. "Concern" in this context can be read as "business". I would consider the phrase "going concern" to be equivalent to "ongoing business". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/concern

Huh? That's the opposite of what https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_concern says, and also the wictionary link posted by someone else.

Those say:

* A going concern is a business that functions without the threat of liquidation for the foreseeable future, usually regarded as at least within 12 months. *

Note without the threat of liquidation. So there is no concern, which is what makes the term so confusable.

I would guess that "concern" is somehow a synonym with "company" (which happens to work well in Swedish, for instance), that makes it more sensical.

Source: I know nothing about accounting on any level.

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