According to the experts, in the V-shaped scenario, the pain is relatively short-lived and the economy bounces back quickly. In a U-shaped recovery, the downturn is a little longer, represented by the curve at the bottom of the U.

But a W- and an L-shaped recovery? Well, apparently, a W-shaped recovery is a nasty one with double dips as the economy appears to recover only to deteriorate again. And the L-shaped recovery may not even be a recovery at all, as everything flat-lines (for those paying attention, that would be represented by the bottom stroke of the letter L). Presumably, a VW-shaped recovery would be a well-engineered recession ideal for cruising down the Autobahn.

Before we bring on Big Bird, Oscar and the Cookie Monster for a further lesson in economics, we might ask why the smart guys in the financial world need to make up clever imagery in the first place. It is probably the same reason they use phrases like 'these shares are going to be upsiding in Q1 before downsiding in Q3' to describe stocks going up and down - their jobs depend on saying things in an extremely complex way to predict the unpredictable. Even some analysts appear to realise that things are getting out of hand.

Christian Nolting, lead strategist for the Asia-Pacific at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management, dived head first into the alphabet soup last month when he quipped: 'You can all do the alphabet economics with the U, W, L-shaped or V-shaped. I'm going more for the pendulum. After the Lehman [Brothers collapse], the market was overshooting on the downside, so now probably, as a matter of fact, the market is overshooting on the upside a little bit. And if there is another downturn, this won't go to the same levels as in March, but then there will be an upturn. It's like a triple-U or quadruple-U.'

Huh? Jan de Bruijn, an Asia-Pacific fund manager at Threadneedle, also admitted the alphabetical lexicon had gone too far when he said: 'The crux of the whole debate is the uncertainty. There is no one who can agree on an economic outlook, and there are a multitude of views out there, where we have a V-shaped, a W-shaped, an L-shaped, a U-shaped, a J-shaped [economic recovery]. You name it, it's been mentioned.'

Maybe if everyone in the financial sector - remember, some of these fellows got us into hot water in the first place - admitted they had no idea when the economy will recover, we would all be better off. At least we would not have to do mind contortions to figure out what in the world a J-shaped recovery involves.

Additional reporting by Nick Westra