English Language & Usage Asked by Nisal Kevin Kotinkaduwa on January 17, 2021
The word Change doesn’t seem to make much sense in this quote from A Christmas Carol. To emphasis the sentence, I kept it in bold-type.
MARLEY was dead, to begin with. There
is no doubt whatever about that. The register
of his burial was signed by the clergyman,
the clerk, the undertaker, & the chief mourner.
Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good
upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his
hand to.
The meaning of the sentence relies on the word 'Change, which is a shortened form of Exchange - the stock exchange. The sentence means that Scrooge had a good reputation on the stock exchange and that his signature carried weight. There is a clue to working out the meaning, since Change begins with a capital letter, indicating that it is a proper noun and not a verb or abstract noun in this context.
Correct answer by Weazer on January 17, 2021
This is a note by Michael Slater:
'Change: The Royal Exchange in the City of London, which functioned as a trading centre from 1570 to 1939.
Michael Slater. Notes, p. 275. In. Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
Answered by Wilson Filho on January 17, 2021
This basically means that because Scrooge deals with a lot of stock exchange and holds a good reputation, his name is well known as very reliable when he puts it down on something, which suggests that Marley is indubitably dead. Later on in the story, when Marley's ghost visits Scrooge, this should make us believe that spirits are real, because of how certain Dickens has made Marley's death seem at the start of the novella.
Answered by emily12353 on January 17, 2021
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