Gerri Willis is a financial reporter, and she’s got a segment called “Gerri’s Two Cents” on Fox News. Um, I realize that there’s an idiomatic expression based upon the two cents idea (as in: “put your two cents in”, etc.), and I also understand that two cents is a unit of money, and as such might seem appropriate for a financial segment title, but really, it’s not; at least, not in this case. Gerri Willis is a financial analyst and a Wall Street reporter, and she talks about the stock market, financial advice, investment strategies, etc. Giving her segment the title: “Gerri’s Two Cents” makes it sound like she’s only got two cents left, and that makes her seem like an incompetent investment advisor: kind of like she’s lost everything in the stock market except for her last two cents. Plus, with all the astronomical sums of money bandied about these days, two cents seems like less than nothing. See what I mean?
So the idiom notwithstanding, the image and the idea of two cents seems to contradict with the notion of expertise in financial analysis and investment strategies, at least on a literal level; and it feels like if you listen to her, you’ll only have two cents left as well, because you’ll lose everything else. How about instead calling her segment: “Gerri Willis: Feel like a Million Dollars!”? That way, it would suggest a large sum of money could be made, but also that if you fail to earn that sum, perhaps you could still feel great anyway, because at least you came away with valuable information and a greater understanding of financial stuff.
Or else, maybe she could have a really longwinded segment about the arcane, abstruse complexities of the stock market and financial regulations, and they could call it: “Gerri Meandering”. (Or: “Gerri Meandering: Following the Long, Complex and Treacherous Road to Your Financial Future”.) Hey, at least in honestly portraying this stuff as frustratingly complicated, perilous and boring, perhaps she'd seem especially trustworthy to viewers!
